Clair de Lune
by boursin
Summary: Immediately following the events of "The Last Jedi" from Kylo's point of view.
1. Breathe

**_A/N: As soon as I saw "The Last Jedi" I couldn't rest until I started this fic. These characters are just too compelling! Please forgive any lore errors; I'm not a Star Wars expert by any means. I'm just fascinated by these characters (especially Kylo Ren/Ben Solo) and want to write them._**

-oOo-=-oOo-=-oOo-

CLAIR DE LUNE

-_ I _-

It was all fire and ash in Kylo Ren's dreams that night, but that was the sort of thing he always experienced after a particularly large amount of excitement the day before. He supposed that was a terrible understatement, but it didn't matter because he'd only thought it to himself.

However, the very act of considering himself, and only himself, alone, brought an involuntary shudder through him for reasons he preferred not to explore. He was only just waking. It wasn't time yet to let it all crash upon him. Perhaps he would work through it piece by piece.

There were techniques which he'd been taught as a Jedi which he still used, which one must, if one is to remain sane with the force pulling one's mind in a myriad of directions all the time. He'd always been told he was special, gifted, strong, but those who told him that seemed not to understand that the gift and the strength swung in opposite ways, too. The force could be a curse, and sometimes, though he loathed to admit it, it became a weakness.

One of the things he'd learned in his training was how to meditate, and he used it every morning like a tool to anchor himself and the force which pushed and pulled him, bringing it all into a manageable equilibrium. If he didn't have that, if he didn't manage it, if he didn't balance it every day, every morning, without fail, he was convinced he'd have self-destructed long ago.

Still, regardless of intent or discipline, the previous day had been so taxing that he found himself sliding to his knees onto the floor beside his bed; he had not even the strength to stand. No, he did. But he didn't. He couldn't make himself.

He stretched forward over his knees, allowing his head to fall, resting his elbows on the hard, cold floor which shone with perfection and he felt imperfect.

He felt he was running out of time.

Hux would expect him soon or, worse, come to fetch him personally and he had to balance himself before then. He absolutely had to balance himself before then. Especially after yesterday.

A certain pain washed through him in an unconscious reawakening of something he didn't want to think about, and so he ignored it, sat up and began breathing, breathing, and finally giving his full attention to the thing that nagged him, and nagged him, begging for his attention all the time, trying to rule him, scratching at his edges; _the force._

 _What do you want today?_ He wanted to demand from it. But it never answered right. It always answered in cruel ways, and never directly. Perhaps it was the indirectness that was the cruelest part of it.

However, this moment was always the best of every day, because this was the moment in which he could ignore everything else and merely exist with the force and let it flow through him however it would. It was once everything else started getting in the way that it all got muddled. But right now, things could be clear and simple: just him and the force. Just … not even him, but only the force. It was more than him.

 _Which way will you pull me today?_ He asked. It didn't answer. He wondered if something so vast could laugh at him. Probably not. Sometimes it made him feel so small and insignificant. It never answered that particular question, either. He didn't even know why he still asked it. Force of habit, perhaps.

Maybe it didn't answer because he wouldn't like what it had to say.

 _Fine,_ he told it. This same impasse was reached every day. It was part of the balancing act for him, knowing and admitting that he couldn't control what the force would try to do to him, but also knowing he might be able to control how he responded to it.

Sometimes he wasn't able to control his responses. That happened more often than he cared to admit or think about.

Again, that thing nagged at him that he didn't want to recognize.

 _Not yet._

It was harder to stay focused today than usual. Because of yesterday.

He heard his own breathing; he heard it was labored. That thing demanded his attention, but he didn't want, no, he _couldn't_ think about it.

 _Not yet._

He drew in air and focused, tightening his closed eyes, and he released, and the force was there, and so was an imbalance, as if part of it had fallen into a vacuum. There was an emptiness, a lopsidedness, an unusual negative space he'd never observed. But it didn't seem new. It was like walking into a room he'd walked through a thousand times, only to notice an empty space that had always been there that he'd never noticed before. He couldn't stop staring at it, or, rather, _sensing_ it, wondering what it was and what it meant, if anything.

He felt as if he wanted it to be filled, yet it seemed a ludicrous idea, for he knew not with what it could be filled, or even what it was, and then urgency struck him as he realized time was passing and he'd scarcely begun the process of balance.

 _Breathe,_ he told himself, forced himself.

Again, that thing pounded distantly on his mind's door.

"No," he said, before realizing he was speaking aloud, not meaning to, and ignoring the weakness and panic that echoed in his voice. He wasn't pleading. He _wasn't._

He needed balance; he had to get balanced. He wouldn't allow the force to weaken him in front of Hux today, but his mind was beginning to curl into itself in the anxiety of running out of time. He didn't trust Hux as far as he could throw him. Actually, he could throw Hux pretty far. He realized needed to come up with a different analogy.

 _Breathe,_ he thought, focusing on the act of doing so and paying attention to the flow of the force inside of him. It was restless, unusually so.

 _Breathe,_ again.

Again.

He discovered he was wounded, but he didn't want to think about why or how or when, yet it nagged at him when he tried to ignore it.

"No," he said, not wanting to face it right now.

The remembrance of the closing door of _that ship. It had to be that ship, didn't it?_

He trembled under the weight of trying not to think about something which his mind so _badly_ wanted to think about and released a breath, a shattered exhale.

And her face.

"No!"

His hand formed a fist and pounded into the perfect, perfect floor before he'd realized what was happening.

He was running out of time.

 _Breathe._

 _Breathe!_

The force within him roiled at the mere suggestion of her.

He _had_ to balance himself. _Now._

Using his coiled fist, he pounded into the old wound at his side, creating pain, an ache, sharp then dull, upon which he could focus his thoughts. He gasped at the pain of it, shuddering, and it eclipsed everything else for a moment, just long enough to break up the thoughts which had threatened to ruin him. The pain allowed him to drive himself into a deep, sharp focus.

The force, in the way he'd been taught to use it, was a tool, a blade, sharp and powerful, best used to carve the universe to one's will. He was now ready to do so.

He stood at once.

-_O_-

Scarcely half an hour later, he entered the meeting room with all the focus of a nocked arrow ready to fire.

General Hux and the other First Order officers who had survived the Rebel insanity stood at once at his arrival, but he didn't care. Nor did he trust any of them. He took his place at the head of a long, polished black table.

That thing threatened to nag at him in the back of his mind.

"Report," commanded Kylo, pushing that thing away.

"Yes, Supreme Commander," said Hux, too compliant for Kylo's taste. Too simpering. Hux was clearly looking for weaknesses in Kylo he could exploit. "The Rebels have been reduced to a handful-,"

"I know that," said Kylo, unable to keep an irritated impatience out of his voice.

"And they've escaped at lightspeed so we don't know where they are-,"

"Yes," said Kylo, quickly losing all patience. He didn't want a rehash of the things he didn't want to hear, or continuous reminders of … nothing. _"I know."_

General Hux seemed to finally notice he was reporting in all the wrong directions.

"However," said Hux, "despite the fact that they were not all destroyed, their numbers are reduced to so few that it would be virtually impossible for them to muster forces that could be of any threat to us."

Kylo just watched him.

"So, the most effective course might be to continue to exercise the dominion of the First Order over the galaxy," said Hux, glancing at Kylo. Hux seemed to be trying to gauge his reaction to his suggestion.

Kylo watched Hux for a moment, just long enough to allow the general to become uncomfortable. Then, Kylo looked over the rest of the officers. They all looked uncomfortable, as if they expected him to force-choke them all at once. It was at times like this that Kylo Ren really did feel like a monster, one behind glass, watched by onlookers who would never understand him, but would point and whisper and wonder what he might do, and fear him.

He knew Hux was wrong about the Rebels, that they were a threat to them, despite their decimated numbers, but he couldn't tell him why. It was impossible for the general to understand the power inherent in… in…

He tightened his hands into fists at his sides, his entire body poised to strike at once and he willed himself not to think about that, not now.

"We must use our forces to control the galaxy, first and foremost," said Kylo, addressing all the officers in the room. "Chasing after one small ship of rebels would be a waste of time and resources. Right now, with both the Republic and the Rebellion in shreds, there is a power vacuum in the galaxy which we will fill."

As he went on to give various contingents specific instructions to subdue and control the disparate corners of the galaxy, he watched the tension, the fear in the officers slowly relax and subside as they listened to his orders. He knew they had been on edge, wondering if this new leader, new Supreme Leader, who had seized power through violence just the day before, would be sane or mad or somewhere in between.

He knew some had heard of his madness on the planet of Crait, how he'd ordered a legion of fire upon one man, one Jedi, beyond all reason, and how Kylo had seemed to lose control.

He _had_ lost control.

It was a problem.

But today, he would not.

He willed himself that he would not.

After the meeting ended and all the orders were placed, only Hux remained with him in the room with the large black, polished table, like a toppled monolith, fallen from worship to the mundane.

"Which way will you go?" asked Hux, and Kylo felt a sharp moment of adrenaline-induced panic that Hux was asking about the light and the dark and knew of his inner recesses and battles and agonies which he would never, ever have willfully revealed. But, of course, it was impossible that he could know about that, Kylo recognized in a moment. What Hux meant was which contingent would Kylo choose to join in the subjugation of the galaxy.

Kylo looked at Hux.

"Would you like to ask that again?" he inquired meaningfully.

Hux's gaze faltered slightly, yet Kylo saw resentment behind it.

"Which way will you go, Supreme Commander?" asked Hux with a certain bow of his head.

He felt that distant… thing, and knew which way he _wanted_ to go. In fact, he was pulled, drawn towards it, like a magnet, like a polar wind, like a subatomic particle, and it threatened to cause him pain if he resisted it. There had been no pain yet, though. At least, not the type of pain he couldn't handle.

Fine, there was pain, but a different type. He didn't want to think about that, not yet.

But he had to.

He touched a pad upon the fallen monolith of a table and a ghost map of the galaxy shivered into being. Approaching it, he looked at the systems, and he knew. He knew where… where _she_ was. He knew that, as long as she was alive, she was a threat to the First Order. She was a threat to his rule. But, in the push and pull of the force, in the radiant glory of their combined ability, it was almost as if his rule and the First Order didn't matter. The Rebel Alliance didn't matter. The Resistance didn't matter. The dead Republic didn't matter. _Nothing mattered except the force._

His eyes fell on a small system on the outer reaches of the galaxy, probably where some Rebel sympathizers laid low.

"There," he said, pointing with a black, gloved finger.

"There?" inquired Hux, seeming to be honestly caught off-guard.

Kylo glanced at him.

"… sir," added Hux.

"Yes," said Kylo.

"Why," asked Hux, adding: "Supreme Commander?"

The general was going to have to get used to calling him that, Kylo could tell.

"Because that's where the rebels went," said Kylo.

Hux paused in the clear inability to understand Kylo's motivations.

"Sir," said Hux, after regaining his wits, "there can't be more than a few dozen of them. They can't possibly cause us any trouble, not now, and they may never manage to do so. The First Order would be much better served by your abilities in obtaining the galaxy at large, not chasing after a tiny band of rebels in some backwater system no one has ever heard of."

Kylo could see the logic in Hux's argument, and wondered if his reason had been compromised by what the force wanted. He turned back to the map of the galaxy to consider.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I know where they went?" asked Kylo, clasping his hands behind his back and finding his eyes drawn again and again to that tiny planet cluster where he _knew_ she was.

"Well, no," said Hux. "I simply assumed it was a … force thing."

Kylo glanced at Hux, feeling vaguely amused, but force-induced loneliness crushed his amusement right away. Hux was right, but he couldn't understand. He would never understand.

 _She_ did, though.

He crushed that thought with a mental fist.

"You're right, General," said Kylo, acceding. "Right about the force, and right about where my focus should lie. I suppose now is not the time to chase after a ragged band of rebels."

"I could send a group of assassins after them," offered Hux.

"No need," said Kylo, perhaps too quickly.

"Are you sure?" asked Hux, probing.

Kylo turned his gaze to Hux, refusing to respond further on the subject. Hux withdrew from the conflict.

"As you wish, Supreme Commander," said Hux, simpering again. He was terrible at acting.

"I'll work with the main forces," said Kylo.

"Very good, sir," said Hux.

"You're dismissed," said Kylo.

"Oh," said Hux, caught off-guard by his sudden dismissal. "Of course."

The general left with as much dignity as he could muster, which was much more than yesterday. Kylo had taken out a lot of his frustrations on Hux, but he didn't trust him at all.

Kylo felt his eyes drawn again to the cluster of white faded spots in the corner of the galaxy's map. He knew where she was, he could _feel_ her, he could feel her force, and he was drawn to it. He moved closer to the map almost without knowing what he was doing, and his hand, his gloved hand, reached up to touch the spots, the facsimiles of planets, that one, the second from the left, smaller than its twin, but larger than the next one… that was the one. She was there.

 _And then he saw her._

 _Breathe._

-_I_-


	2. Months

_**A/N: Thank you, S23, safayi, Sage McMae, and satoz for the reviews! Some might wonder the significance of the name of this fic, "Clair de Lune". This ff actually originated as I was preparing Debussy's "Clair de Lune" for a concert this past weekend. I had seen "The Last Jedi" and couldn't stop thinking about Rey and Kylo Ren every time I played it! The tonal structure, the peaceful parts mixed with dissonant parts and some downright tempestuous parts seemed to nail the Rey/Kylo dynamic pretty solidly, so then I realized I was going to have to write some Reylo ff. So I did. End of sidenote.**_

 _ **Enjoy the new chapter!**_

-_II_-

 _He immediately saw where she was, at the edge of a loamy forest, heavy with moss, walking towards a derelict settlement. He was distinctly reminded of the scent of her._

 _He knew the instant she became aware of him, and he also knew, or felt the piece click into place in her mind, as she made the decision to ignore him._

 _That made it easy for him to make the same decision._

He tapped the pad on the table with his gloved finger and the ghostly map of the universe shifted, stretched, and then faded away.

 _She came back, though, despite his attempts to ignore her. He couldn't help but see her as she approached the settlement with several others; that useless pilot, the Stormtrooper traitor, … and Leia Organa. He found he couldn't stop watching._

 _"We are from the Resistance," said his mother to a man that came to greet her. A certain pain creeped through Kylo at her voice._

 _"Get out," muttered the girl to Kylo, something like a threat in her mind. She'd turned away from the others and was moving back towards the tree line._

 _"I tried," said Kylo simply._

 _He felt rage flow through their connection, and frustration, from her._

 _"I know where you are," he added._

 _She paused with a moment of fear, but then a conviction._

 _"And I know where you are," she said, as if that threatened him._

 _It didn't threaten him. If anything, it made him feel an alien comfort which he didn't allow himself to dwell on._

 _"So, what are you going to do about it?" she asked, hanging on that precipice._

 _"Nothing," he replied._

 _She didn't seem to know how to process that response._

 _"Why not?" she asked._

 _"I'm busy," he said, and she knew why. He was busy pulling the galaxy under his rule of the First Order. He watched her face. "You don't like what I'm doing, do you?"_

 _"Of course, I don't!" she said. "Ben, you had the chance to-,"_

 _"To what?" he asked, cutting her off as his patience began to evaporate, though he tried to cling to it. "To save a few rebels… at what cost? If I didn't take control of the First Order, then who would? What would result from the power vacuum left by Snoke's death? Isn't it better that I direct the First Order than someone else, or worse yet, that it fall to chaos and leave greater uncertainty in the galaxy?"_

 _"But the Rebellion could-," began Rey, but he couldn't stop himself from cutting her off again._

 _"The Rebellion is weak," he seethed, trying not to think of his mother. "And nearly gone. It couldn't possibly execute rule in the galaxy. You don't understand, Rey, that an absence of power doesn't mean peace. It means another power comes to take its place."_

 _Rey went silent. He knew she wasn't convinced, but she didn't know. She didn't know how power works. She was naïve._

 _"And until a new power falls into place, there will be chaos," he said. "Your Rebellion friends don't have any idea how to manage that, do they?"_

 _"Don't," she said, clipped, her rage soft yet unyielding. "Not just after killing so many of them. They are my friends, Ben."_

 _She had a way of stopping him, of reasoning with him, and he was silent. Perhaps he'd been too callous. He didn't know how to manage this sort of thing. He'd only been taught about power, not about how to be … considerate? Consideration was a luxury, and came after the more important things, like maintaining power and control. He'd never had time for that sort of luxury._

 _"We could have done this together," he said, finding it difficult to say the words, though it was all he could think about. "It could have been different."_

 _"Would it?" she asked, her eyes sad. She didn't believe him. How could she not believe him?_

 _"Yes, of course it would!" he said, feeling frustration rise in him that she couldn't see what he could see._

 _He watched her catch her breath, he was focused on every detail of movement, focused on the single pinpoint of her and everything that she was, and the link between them faded, echoing, then ghosted away like the map of the galaxy._

He was drawn, coiled so tightly he couldn't bear it, and, using the force, he threw a chair, black, perfect, triangular, with all his strength into the back wall. It shattered into imperfection and crumbled to the floor in pieces. Afterwards he heard the echo of the sound he had made, the cry of fury.

He'd lost control, again.

 _Breathe._

-_O_-

Months passed. Every day, Kylo Ren rose and fought to balance the force within him. Almost every day, he saw Rey. It had become so normal that it was as if they lived in separate realities, one in which she built her forces and he built his empire. Despite the fact that she was building a resistance to fight his First Order, he didn't care. He'd as soon kill her as cut out his own heart. He wasn't convinced her death wouldn't somehow kill him, that it would be as deadly as if he truly did cut out his own heart. The First Order and the Resistance didn't matter. It was just something they did. Empires could rise and fall, yet they would still remain.

Regardless, an inevitable conflict was coming closer.

 _"Ben," she said, and he listened. "We don't have to do this."_

 _"You're right," he said. "We don't."_

 _She looked at him with frustration, as if he wasn't listening to her, as if he hadn't listened to her all these months. He'd listened, but she was too stubborn to see what he saw._

 _She was so determined to do it her way, to fight the First Order, to keep this ridiculous charade of light versus dark or good versus evil or whatever fables the Rebellion and the Jedi continued to dish up generation after generation. He knew, however, that it was much simpler than that. It was just about who had power and who didn't. Right now, he did._

 _Why would she fight to wrest power from him when he would give it to her freely?_

 _It made no sense to him. Still, the longing for her to join him remained. Their combined power was supernovic; a double-helix of frission; an aurora sunrise._

 _He wondered how long it would take her to see it his way. How long would she continue this futile fight? How many wars would have to be fought in the stars? They could be gods. They could rule everything._

 _He decided to change the subject._

 _"How are you?" he asked, feeling a tinge of pride at his burgeoning ability to relate to another person in 'normal' ways._

 _He wasn't sure why she seemed perplexed by his question. He'd asked her this, before, and she'd asked the same. Perhaps his timing was off._

 _"Fine," she said finally. "I'm fine."_

 _He waited for more._

 _"What exactly are you asking?" she asked._

 _"I want to know how you are," he said, unable to keep the intensity from his gaze, feeling as if the possibility of ever being casual and easy in conversation was slipping away from him again._

 _"I'm… fine," she said, though her gaze faltered._

 _"You don't look fine," he said, direct._

 _"Go away, Ben," she said._

 _"Fine," he clipped, leaving._

There was always a sense of loss once their connections were severed, but he ignored that.

-_II_-

"Supreme Commander, we've brought most of the galaxy under our control," said General Hux, reporting among the other officers, with Kylo at the head of the monolith-table. The ghost of a galaxy was floating between them, over the table, showing the parts which they controlled in red, and the parts which they did not were still white. The most sizeable unclaimed portion of the galaxy was the portion in which Rey was, and the growing Rebellion. It was inevitable that the eyes of all the officers present would land upon it. "I believe it is time to quash the fledgling Rebellion."

Kylo considered the idea. It was reasonable. Of course, they would want to remove what was the greatest remaining threat to their dominion, although there wasn't much to that threat. Rey had been working with his mother and the rest of the Resistance leaders quite furiously for months, but there wasn't much to show for it. They had little resources and little time, and little organization. They would be destroyed easily. Kylo had come against far worse resistance in other corners of the galaxy.

But if he couldn't get her to see things from his perspective, this conflict would never end. She would only create a rebellion again in another place, with another people, and the wars would go on. Why couldn't she see it his way?

Heaving a sigh, he studied the map with his eyes.

"It's time to finish the old Rebellion once and for all," he said in agreement, and then they began planning the specifics. He didn't mention that he would preserve at all costs that which he found most precious, that Rey and their force-bond was where his true loyalty lay. They wouldn't understand. They never would. It was best to keep them in the dark.

If it didn't interfere with the best interests of the First Order, it would never be a problem.

During his time as Supreme Commander he'd been able to cement his role as head of the First Order through tireless effort and disciplined practice, and perhaps a dose of fear. He'd begun to realize that his Jedi training had given him the things that made it possible for him to effectively lead. Without the ability to balance the force within him daily coupled with the ability to use the force to make strategic decisions, someone else would have had the edge over him to seize rule. That someone else would probably have been Hux.

Hux's resentment of him had mellowed over time, though Kylo knew it was still there. It was dormant, waiting, content for now to allow Kylo to rule while he ruled in the First Order's favor, but threatened to resurge should opportunity knock. If Hux wasn't such a disciplined and brilliant organizer Kylo might have removed him and replaced him. As it was, they'd reached an alliance where they each found the other useful in the roles which they filled. Perhaps they had a tenuous friendship, though it was laced with mutual distrust. It'd been months since he'd used the force on Hux to browbeat him. Kylo supposed that was something.

Together they walked down the hallway of the First Order headquarters due only to convenience; they were headed in the same direction.

"It seems we are finally going after the Rebellion as you initially wished, Supreme Commander," said Hux, making conversation. Hux had gotten better at simpering. It was almost convincing, sometimes. "Are you pleased?"

Hux couldn't know the real reason why Kylo wanted so badly to go to that corner of the galaxy. It wasn't revenge. It was, instead, a missing piece of himself that he needed to feel again.

"Yes," replied Kylo, short as usual, but he glanced at Hux. "Are you?"

Perhaps Rey had inadvertently taught Kylo some rudimentary conversation skills that he could use.

"Ah," said Hux, who seemed not to have expected Kylo's question, nor accustomed to anything approaching camaraderie between them. "I… am pleased with the progress of the First Order. I didn't think we would manage it all so quickly."

"It does appear that we've nearly conquered the entire galaxy," agreed Kylo.

"It has been possible due to your leadership," said Hux, though he seemed as if he were surprised that had been the case, and that it was an admission. It didn't sound like simpering, for once.

"In part," said Kylo, feeling gracious, "but your organization has been essential, General."

Hux cleared his throat, appearing to be uncomfortable with compliments, but Kylo had only been speaking the truth. They'd made a decent team, thus far. It wasn't ridiculous to simply tell the truth.

He observed Hux.

"We should arrive soon at the Rebel base," said Hux, formal and dismissing himself. He then turned and walked away down an adjoining hallway.

As Kylo watched him leave, found himself wondering where Rey was, right then.

 _"I'm here," she said, her face a shining bloom in the dark of space._

He turned into a vacant room and shut the door, his need for privacy immediate.

 _"Rey," he said, and that was all he said._

 _She was lit by the warm tones of firelight; he assumed it was night on her planet. It reminded him of another time… but he pushed that thought away._

 _"What do you want?" she asked him, though her voice was kind, tonight. He supposed she'd had time to soften towards him after their most recent disagreement._

 _"I want to tell you we're coming," he said, betraying the First Order, not that he felt it mattered if he did or not. He didn't think the Rebellion could resist them with or without prior notice._

 _She drew a breath and studied his face, and he watched the machinery in her mind turn with the things she would have to do to prepare, the people she would have to inform; the last-minute preparations they would have to make. The danger they were all suddenly in._

 _"I have to go," she said._

 _"Of course you do," he said, and it came out gently, somehow._

 _She halted, gazing at him as if she didn't know what to say next, but wanted to say something._

 _He waited for her._

 _"Thank you," she said, and then added: "Ben."_

 _The way she said his name… it made him feel something akin to regret for what was going to happen to her Rebellion._

 _"It's nothing," he said, short, and he turned away._

He faced a window to the outside, to the streams of light passing by as his ship hurtled through space towards the place which he'd longed to be. For months some part of him had longed for it. He slid off his glove and looked at his hand, turning it in the silvery starlight, wondering at the single touch he'd experienced months ago.

Neither of them had dared try to touch again through their bond. It was too much, too terrifying, too confusing. Besides, when they touched, they'd seen disparate visions regarding the other about which they were equally stubborn and on which they could not agree. Kylo Ren would not give up on what he saw. He would not. He knew it could happen. He _wanted_ it to happen. He so very _badly_ wanted it to happen.

-_O_-


	3. Blue-Green Marble

_**A/N: I've just gotta say; Kylo Ren is a really interesting character. Also, he's a weirdo.**_

-_III_-

They fell out of light speed in a blinding array of light, within reaching distance of three planets in the system. Kylo Ren's gaze fell upon each one of them; a reddish giant, a small moon-like planet, and a third, blue-green, marbled with white, _beautiful._ He knew that was the one she was on.

There were still twenty more habitable planets in the system on which the First Order could look for the Rebellion. They didn't yet know where the Rebellion was, but Kylo did. It would be where she was.

"Supreme Leader Ren, we've reached the Ladza System," announced General Hux, who was leading the navigation room in which Kylo Ren stood and surveyed. A vast curving window allowed a nearly 180-degree view of the vast black and white of space and the three planets within sight. Kylo carefully avoided gazing at the blue-green planet for very long.

"Where shall we look first?" inquired Hux.

"Send scout teams simultaneously to each planet," said Kylo, "and have a team survey communications while another visually monitors airspace."

"Yes, sir," said Hux, turning to immediately coordinate the orders. He paused, and then asked: "What will you do, sir?"

Kylo glanced back at the planets in view.

"I'll be joining a survey team," he said, glancing back to Hux.

Hux gave a glance to the planets at well, then nodded to Kylo and left.

Kylo watched him go. There was something wrong about Hux, today. Something was off.

For now, however, it didn't matter. Kylo Ren found himself so agitated about the possibility of seeing Rey in person that he could scarcely think about anything else. The force within him shuddered with anticipation.

As he boarded his small ship with two storm troopers, as he left the docking bay, as he turned his ship towards the blue-green marbled planet, the force's beckoning grew more and more deafening, his anxiety to reach it grew greater and greater, and time seemed to slow to a sickening crawl. He couldn't move fast enough. He couldn't fly fast enough. He couldn't reach her fast enough. He knew she was waiting.

At last, after landing, as he felt and heard and saw the hissing of his ship door opening, the misted shift of combining atmospheres between ship and planet obscured his view as he stood on the exit platform, flanked by his two storm troopers as they brandished their rifles.

Suddenly, without warning, his lightsaber flew from his belt into the mist, disappearing into the haze for only a moment, until it lit up with a deep buzz, casting a reddish glow in the fog around it. He felt and heard the troopers at his sides raise their rifles to fire, but, perhaps in a knee-jerk reaction, he raised both of his arms at once to either side and the storm troopers flew from the ramp in opposite directions, their shots going awry, until they landed far away from the ship, rendered unconscious.

He watched the red glow of his lightsaber blade and crossguard, and he could feel no threat or fear, only anticipation. Staring into the mist, he willed it to subside. It did subside, but with agonizing slowness. He wanted to see her. _He wanted to see her._

Her rosebud face flittered into view, defiant, challenging, the mist falling to shreds and finally revealing her ready stance, her grey cowl, her thin, lithe arms, her rigid form, poised to fight, and, within her coiled fist, his lightsaber, glowing red, casting a red pall upon the entire right side of her body and emitting a low, steady, threatening hum.

He made no move to defend himself, but instead stood upon the platform and gazed at her, reveling in the sight which he'd been denied for months; it was the sight he didn't know he'd desperately missed until he saw it, but now that he had it, he couldn't tear his eyes away.

But it was more than a sight, it was the force. She gave him balance. He felt it at once, and he didn't want it to stop.

She looked to be waiting for him to attack, but with what? She had his lightsaber.

"Can I have that back, please?" he asked.

She looked confused by his request.

"The lightsaber," he said, gesturing. "May I have it back?"

She stared at him and her warrish pose loosened a little.

"No," she said, still seeming perplexed by his response. "Why would I give it to you?"

"Because it's mine," he said, simply.

"Why would I arm my enemy?" she asked, incredulous.

"Is that what I am?" he asked.

"Yes!" she said, defiant. "Of course, that's what you are!"

She still couldn't see what he saw. He sighed and began to walk down the exit platform, towards her, and she stiffened in response, bringing the glowing red of his saber up between them.

"Where's yours?" he asked, glancing towards her belt. Her belt was empty, and as he shifted his gaze back to her face, her eyes faltered for a moment. "You don't have one."

She stiffened defensively.

"How can it have been this long, and you haven't made another lightsaber for yourself?" he asked in disbelief.

"What does it matter to you?" she asked, still defensive.

He took a moment to look her over, sensing her with the force. It took all his willpower not to release cogent thought and simply revel in the way he felt being near her, but he saw it, he saw why she hadn't built another lightsaber.

"You don't know how," he said, half-amazed, then feeling a rush of excitement. "I could show you."

"I don't need you to show me anything," she said, brandishing his lightsaber. "You're here to destroy me and my friends."

"I'm not here to destroy you," he said honestly. Her friends were another matter. He wasn't particularly here to destroy the Resistance, it just happened to be convenient to the First Order that they do so. Still, it wasn't his purpose. "I'm here _for_ you."

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, for she must have taken his statement as hostile, judging by her stance.

"Ben," she said, but was interrupted by the storm troopers rousing at either end of the glade in which Kylo's ship sat.

They were both caught off-guard by the inconvenience of being joined by conscious storm troopers, and in the time it took Kylo to send one back into unconsciousness with the force, Rey had taken care of the other one. He found it pleased him when they worked in tandem like that. It was almost as if they didn't even have to think about it; they just _felt_ and _did._

"Where did you learn to do that?" he asked her, regarding the unconsciousness trick.

"I-," she began, but stopped, glancing up with him in distrust. "It's no business of yours."

There was something vaguely amusing about it all. He glanced down at his lightsaber again.

"Will you please put that away?" he asked.

After a moment, though she didn't take her eyes from him (as if he might suddenly spring an attack, which was ludicrous), she released the power of his saber and put it in her belt. He followed it with his eyes, displeased and pleased at the same time that she'd kept it on her person.

"You _are_ going to give that back, aren't you?" he asked her.

She just glared at him.

He waited for her glare to soften, which it did. He watched the cogs turn in her mind. There was a shield which she had cast up around herself the moment he'd arrived in person, as if that was something she did automatically, as if the months they'd spent connected through the force bond meant nothing, as if she'd reverted to past days of mortal combat between them, as if she thought he'd come at her with death on his mind. He had nothing of the like on his mind, and he knew she would sense it.

"Not yet," she said, glancing up at him.

He looked over her shoulder, towards the forest behind her.

"Where is the Rebellion?" he asked.

"Not here," was all she said.

"Where are they?" he asked.

"As if I would tell you!" she said, exasperated.

"It doesn't matter if you tell me or not," he said. "They'll be found by the First Order soon enough. I was simply curious."

"How can you say it like that?" she asked him, conflict in her eyes. "Like you don't care, like it doesn't matter what happens to the Rebellion?"

"It doesn't," he said.

"Yes, it does!" she said.

"Not to me," he said.

"Your own mother is with them," she said.

That gave him pause.

"Do you want her to die?" she asked.

He began to feel frustration creeping in.

"All of this could have been avoided if you'd have just joined me," he said, perhaps more harshly than he intended. "We could have started over, started _everything_ over."

"And what would that have looked like?" she asked. "How many more people would have to die, forced to come under our rule?"

"There will always be rebellions, Rey," he said, short, fissuring, "Every power deals with insurgencies, it's inevitable… to think otherwise is to be naïve."

"Who are you to choose who should live or die?" she asked him.

"Who are you to decide what is wrong or right?" he demanded.

There was a shift in the force between them, the white, shattering crest of a wave, and she moved to take his lightsaber from her belt, but he was faster this time. He drew it with the force, and felt a rush of power as it landed solidly in the crux of his gloved hand. It only took her a moment of surprise before she had shoved him as hard as she could with the force, and he was flung back in the sudden pull of breathlessness to land against the ship's platform, _hard._

He drew a breath, and another, and another, and she watched him, coiled tight like a wire. Their dual-focus was interrupted, again, by the distant sound of rousing storm troopers.

Without taking their eyes away from each other, he stretched his arm towards one and she towards the other, and the storm troopers fell back into a (possibly blissful) unconsciousness. There was a certain pleasure that came from working together in unison with her, like sliding the missing piece of a broken plate into place and finding it fits perfectly, better than he could have ever imagined. He wondered if she felt that, too.

Slowly, he stood again to face her on more equal ground.

"Let me show you how to make yours," he said, holding the hilt of his lightsaber.

Her eyes shifted, he could tell she wanted him to, but the look quickly shuttered.

"There's no time," she said. "The First Order-,"

"It could take some time for them to find the Rebellion," he said. "It could take them much longer if you'd tell me where they are."

Her gaze turned distrustful, and she side-eyed him.

"You expect me to believe that you would sabotage the First Order's mission so you can help me build a lightsaber?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, feeling it quite an easy decision to make.

She didn't seem to know what to think of him.

"Granted, they'll be found eventually," he said.

She sighed at him.

"But it would give us time," he said. _Time. He wanted all the time he could manage with her. Every second was precious._

"Ben," she said.

There she went, saying his name like that. How was he supposed to rule the galaxy with autonomy when she said his name like _that_?

"Yes, Rey?" he replied, probably willing to give her anything.

"I'll tell you where they are," she said, though her breath was short as if she couldn't believe what she was agreeing to do, who she was agreeing to trust.

He exhaled, finding his breath shaky, relieved in their momentary truce.

"But," she said, glancing to either side, "What are we going to do about _them?"_

Oh. The storm troopers.

-_O_-

"I'm going to investigate the range to the south," said Kylo Ren to the two storm troopers, after he'd gathered them back on the ship.

"Yes, Supreme Commander Ren," said one, "but… weren't we attacked?"

"Actually," said Kylo, "there was a magnetic storm."

"There… was?" asked the other.

"Yes," said Kylo. "It knocked both of you out. Very strange, yes?"

"Er," said the first, "Strange, I guess."

"But who's she?" asked the second, pointing at Rey, who was standing nearby, watching with a measure of amusement on her features.

"She's not here," said Kylo, waving his hand mystically.

"Wait, what was I saying?" said the storm trooper, instantly befuddled.

"You'll follow my orders, which are to stand guard over the ship and report to General Hux when necessary," said Kylo.

"Yes, sir," said the storm troopers, snapping to attention.

"Come on, let's go," said Kylo to Rey, and he thought she might have been smiling at him before they both turned towards the exit platform, and that smile made something twist in his stomach.

They walked in silence for a while through the forest, thick with moss, and laced with white tendrils of mist. He supposed he was simply basking in the glow of being near her force; it was a relief, a warmth, a completion. He didn't need to talk. He was, all at once, content.

"I need to figure out how I'm going to keep the Resistance from killing you the moment they see you," she said after a while.

"It's probably best if they don't see me," he replied.

"It would be less complicated that way, I suppose," though she seemed hesitant to use that method.

He glanced at her.

"You don't like the idea of keeping secrets from them?" he asked, sensing her.

"No," she said. "I don't."

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't like duality," she said.

"Yet you expect me to do the same?" he asked. "I'm keeping your secrets from the First Order, Rey."

Her brow creased, and she turned her gaze to the forest floor in front of her as she walked.

"You're right," she admitted, though her voice was quiet with displeasure.

He found he didn't enjoy her displeasure at all.

She glanced around herself and then drew a breath to speak.

"I know a place where you can stay while we build my saber," she said. "It will be near the Rebellion forces, but not too close."

"I need to give you instructions on how the Rebellion can avoid being detected by the First Order's communications array and aerial monitoring," he said.

She turned to look at him with surprise.

"What?" he asked.

"I just… I know you're delaying them, but I didn't think you'd be this… _accommodating,"_ she said.

"We need time," he said. "As much as we can get."

Again, there was something of a smile on her face, and he relished it. He wanted more.

"I'll bring you to the cave where you'll stay," she said, "then I'll go inform the Rebel forces of your information… I'll have to plead that I've learnt it off a storm trooper or something… then I'll be back."

She glanced back at him, a ray of hope on her face.

"I'll bring what I have, which isn't much," she said.

"We will find what we need," he replied, knowing it.

He wondered at her expression then. It appeared to be gratitude. He found he had a hard time trusting it, so he looked away.

"Very good," she said from his side, clipped and taking his cue, pressing on through the trees.

He followed.

"How have you lived without a lightsaber all these months?" he asked after a while. He wouldn't be able to stand being without his. It was like a part of him. An appendage.

"I didn't possess one for long," she said.

Silence fell between them regarding the lightsaber which they'd torn apart in their last conflict.

"You have it?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

Silence again. They weren't talking about it. The thought of it brought him pain, for a multitude of reasons, and he leaned into the pain, letting it bring him focus.

"We will find a use for the crystal," he said after a while.

"I have the Jedi books," she threw out, knocking him into surprise.

"What?" he asked.

"The books," she said, as if it wasn't a big deal. "The sacred texts."

"You took them?" he asked, incredulous. "From Ahch-To?"

"Yes," she said, though she looked a little guilty. It nearly made him laugh.

"Why did you do that?" he asked.

"I wanted them," she replied, as if it were that simple.

"But-," he began, and she cut him off.

"Oh, please," she said, rolling her eyes. "Are _you_ going to judge _me?"_

"Your transgressions are great," he replied, biting back what felt like a smile.

She might have laughed, a tiny thing, and it confused him, as if these were things normal people did. He'd never been _normal._ He felt a passing wave of discomfort.

"It's just ahead," she said as they trod down through swaying grasses and wildflowers into a hollow, a dip in the landscape, wherein drooping trees bowed over a placid pond and beyond which was a fissure in the pale face of a rising cliff covered in hanging vines.

"It looks covert," he said agreeably.

"Covert enough, I hope," she said.

"And not too far," he said.

"From the Rebellion?" she asked.

"From my ship," he said, but then: "And the Rebellion."

"Stay here," she said, as if he was going to do anything else.

"I will," he said, feeling agreeable.

She smiled at him again, and it felt strange. She seemed hesitant to leave.

He watched her.

"I'll be back," she said.

"I know," he replied.

For a moment she seemed to be trying and failing to comprehend him.

"I don't understand it, either," he said.

She looked surprised.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

He shook his head a little. It wasn't worth getting into, not now.

"Nothing," he said. "Go on."

She turned to go, and he watched her go. It wasn't easy. Why wasn't it easy? She was coming back, it wouldn't be long. He concluded that it _must_ be the force. The force objected to their parting.

After she'd crested the rise to return to the Rebellion, Kylo Ren turned into the narrow cave in which he was to dwell, pushed the vines aside, and knew what he had to do in the meantime.

In one force-powered brush of his hand he swept the floor of the cave clear of all debris. He sat down, cross-legged, in the middle, and breathed. He balanced. He _focused._

He would need to be balanced in dealing with her. He would need balance in recalling his Jedi training. He would especially need balance in recalling the knowledge he'd been taught in conjunction with the horrors of his youth. He wanted to give it all to Rey but he didn't know if he could do it.

But most of all, he just wanted her to _join him._

 _Breathe._

-_III_-


	4. Lightsabers

_**A/N - ::frantically Googles "how to make lightsabers"::**_

-_IV_-

"Ben," he heard her say before he saw her again. There was an instantaneous relief at her resurgent proximity. It was intangible, the relief she brought him, but real. It must have been the force that made it happen. He opened his eyes to look up at her, standing in the entrance to the cave, pushing green garlands of vine aside, the brilliant bloom of yellow-white sunlight behind her, obscuring all but the most prescient details of her face and body into silhouette.

"Yes?" he said, his voice coming out softer than he'd intended. He was caught in the aurora high of feeling complete again with her arrival, and it took him a moment to recover his senses.

She shifted, pulling a knapsack from her back and moving to bring it into the cave.

"I've brought what I have," she said.

He stood.

"Let's do it outside," he said. "There's more light."

In short order, Kylo Ren found himself sitting with Rey on two adjoining sides of a flat boulder with the pieces of a broken lightsaber, various pieces of machinery, and the stolen sacred Jedi texts. How ironic it seemed that he and Rey held everything left of the Jedi among them on this rock. He didn't care for the Jedi. He found their doctrine misguided and extremist, but there was value to be found, if one picked it out from the rest of the mess.

Rey had one of the books open on the rock and was reading from it.

"It says here that I need to somehow attune myself with the… the… _kyber crystals?_ " she said, glancing over the two shards of the broken lightsaber and the broken kyber crystal within it. She appeared completely befuddled by what was before her.

"Let me look," he said, taking both pieces of lightsaber and inspecting the fractures. _Interesting._ "It's fascinating that we broke it like this. In half."

He glanced up at her and she was watching him, waiting for more.

"Are we equals in the force?" he asked her, feeling guileless and holding the pieces of the lightsaber up as possible evidence.

"Are we?" she asked, not knowing.

He didn't conclude because he couldn't, so he put the pieces down and said, "You will have to activate the crystals towards your own use."

"How do I do that?" she asked.

"There are two ways," he said, shifting his weight on the rock.

She watched him, waiting.

"You can either attune to the crystal like a Jedi," he said, "Or you can bend it to your will."

"Like a Sith," she said, her brow furrowing.

He glanced down at his lightsaber.

"If you do the latter, it will turn red," he said.

"Then that's what you did," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because that's how I use the force," he said.

She glanced away, and he watched her, silently daring her to proclaim his methods 'wrong'. She didn't.

"So, now what?" she asked.

"Choose how you will do it," he said.

"I will attune to it, of course!" she said, as if anything else was madness.

"If that's what you wish," he said, and then he glanced at her staff, an idea forming. "What kind of lightsaber do you want?"

"There are different kinds?" she asked.

"Of course, there are," he said. "Your staff… you're not terrible with it-,"

"Thanks," she said, wry.

"What I mean is," he said, "it seems to be the weapon you're most comfortable with."

"It is," she said, and then: "Do you mean I can have a staff… _saber?_ "

"I wouldn't call it that," he said, "but yes."

A smile crossed her face like a beam of sunlight.

"Really?" she asked.

He wanted to watch her smile a bit longer, but forced himself to reply.

"Hand me your staff," he said.

-_O_-

Some time later, as the sky faded into a rich purpling dusk, Kylo Ren found himself fully engaged in the process of teaching Rey how to build her lightsaber… or _staffsaber_ as she wouldn't stop calling it. It seemed a bastardization of so many things to use that term, but he let it slide. Besides, it was so _engaging_ to show her, and she was a quick study of the technical.

They were finishing the second end, affixing the crystal within a casing where it would be activated by a power grid. Rey was connecting the pieces together under his instruction using a set of small screwdrivers and a soldering kit. She seemed delighted by the process, by learning; she was an eager, quick student. He found himself captivated by teaching her.

"Be careful not to invert the emitter matrix," he said, watching over her shoulder as she soldered a wire.

"Why shouldn't I do that?" she asked, glancing at him.

"Because it would explode," he said, adding: "Violently."

"Noted," she said, huffing a little laugh, and continuing her soldering.

He fell into the act of simply watching her work. For some time she went on without noticing him, so embroiled was she in the process of building her lightsaber, that he was free to observe her however he wished. He noticed the inherent grace of her hands, combined with a certain strength, and the intensity of her focus when she was determined. He allowed himself to fall into simply feeling the push and pull of the force while near her. It was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. His force flowed into her and hers into him. It was a symbiosis. He wondered if she'd noticed it, yet. Had she payed close enough attention to feel it? Did she feel it in the same way?

She glanced up at him and he glanced away at once, thinking perhaps there was too much on his face.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked, picking up her screwdriver to work on a piece.

He glanced over her.

"I have a question," he announced.

"Do you?" she replied, seeming amused, and continuing to fiddle with the end of her lightsaber.

"Yes," he said, though it was difficult for him to articulate it. She seemed to perceive this, and she put her tools down to look at him.

"What is it?" she asked.

"What do you feel when you are near me?" he asked, knowing it was a strange question, knowing it was possibly a ridiculous question, and feeling strangely exposed by the act of asking it.

She gazed at him, perhaps due to considering how to reply, or considering how to put what she felt into words.

"I feel…," she began.

He hung on every word, feeling the force flow between them.

"Powerful," she said, glancing around as if looking for more words. He dared not reply because he wanted more, if she could give it. "And… warm, and… and like I know you."

He waited.

"And as if we could-," she said, but she stopped herself and looked away.

"Could what?" he prompted, hoping.

She shook her head slightly, and he perceived sadness in her.

"Perhaps that's only something Snoke put in my head," she said. "To fool me."

She resumed working on the lightsaber, finishing the panel and locking it into place, and he found himself wanting to touch her again for the first time.

"You must attune yourself to the crystals, now," he said, noticing the gentleness of his voice as an afterthought.

She glanced over at him and gave him a nod.

"How do I?" she asked.

"How do you do anything with the force?" he asked her. " _Feel it._ "

He watched her draw a breath and let it out, steadying herself and closing her eyes for feeling the force and trying to use it in an unfamiliar way, and he allowed her the space to do it, though he couldn't help but feel the force with her. It was all around them, and through them, and between them.

The sun had set, and the shadows had deepened, and as he cast his eyes upward, he saw that a few stars had emerged from the darkening blue, white and shimmering in the atmosphere. A faint breeze rose, rustling the papery leaves of a dangling tree as its branches kissed the still, reflective surface of the pond. He watched a leaf touch the water, and he watched ripples, small, concentric, moving with perfect smoothness out into the body of the pond and then fade and disappear. He felt so acutely aware of everything around him, more than he could ever recall, and then he felt the life of the crystal in Rey's hands.

He shifted his gaze to the crystal, but his focus was on what he was feeling. She was attuning herself to it, he could feel that, but due to his proximity, he was part of it, too. He didn't know how to _not_ be mixed into it, for when they were together they mixed and blended, and he couldn't pull himself away.

"Rey," he said, not wanting to sabotage her attunement efforts.

She didn't open her eyes, but he felt her respond to his anxiety in the force with a certain gentleness, perhaps a comfort, if he could remember what it was to be comforted, and when she reached out and grabbed him by the wrist he almost panicked and drew away. For a split-second he feared her touch would consume him, and then he found he didn't care if he was consumed.

Beneath her perfect hand, everything he felt before magnified by a hundred-fold, and he was lost. He fell, reckless, plummeting into the force between them.

There were three kyber crystals here, with them. Two were in the lightsaber she was making with her staff, from the broken shards of Anakin Skywalker, and one was in his lightsaber. All three responded to them, so great was the surge of the force in their combination. He felt the crystals' life forces, their crystalline sentience, their deep, expansive, hive-like knowledge and wisdom between all the kyberite in the galaxy, and he felt _her. Oh, stars, he felt her. This is what he had wanted, craved, needed, without ever knowing what it was he'd wanted, but this was it._

The crystals responded to them, they filled with the force, they absorbed it and reflected it and their respective harmonies fell into place with Rey and Kylo Ren, who were already the same; their frequencies aligned and sang in glorious, glowing force-brilliance.

Kylo heard a desperate gasp, and then realized it had come from him. Rey's hand broke from his wrist and they fell apart, shattered, bewildered, awestruck. He clutched the rock beneath him and struggled to breathe, realizing he was out of breath, that he had been strained, physically overwhelmed by what had just happened. The force still flowed around them, agitated, perhaps even _excited_ , like the frantic pulsing of electrons heated beyond stability. But it was bearable. He could focus, now.

He looked at her. She, like him, had fallen against the rock, and she clutched it with her perfect, perfect hands, hands he wanted to worship and take in his own and kiss a thousand times, yet the threatening power terrified him. She was breathless and gazing at him with a wonder he did not doubt he returned in his own eyes.

Her gaze shifted to the lightsaber staff between them. He watched her hand, her delicate trembling fingers, reach out for it, and take it, and flip the switch.

The sound, familiar, a primal, steady hum that could be both heard and felt. Sudden light lit Rey's face from both sides in the darkening night and he found he couldn't take his eyes from the saber blades, for he'd never seen anything like them, ever, anywhere.

 _They were white._

"Ben," she began, her voice trembling. He could see she was having the same reaction as him as her eyes stayed on the white blades.

"I don't know," he said, helpless. Concerning the force, they were the most knowledgeable people left in the galaxy, and it was right then that it hit Kylo just how darkly comical that was. They were idiots. They knew _nothing._

Something nagged at him.

There had been _three_ crystals.

He grabbed at the saber hilt at his side, pulling it out, almost dropping it in his haste to do so, and he stared at it, almost afraid to know. His thumb lingered over the switch.

"Ben," she said again, and he could hear her breathing mingled with his own.

 _Click._

The glow of the blade struck him, followed by the crosshilts, then the deep, resounding vibratory hum, and the shock of the color.

Or, rather, the lack of color.

"Ben!" said Rey, her voice trembling.

 _White… white. It was white. His lightsaber had turned white._

He released it in shock, the blade falling back into itself, extinguishing into darkness and he dropped the hilt and it skittered across the stone and fell on the ground.

He didn't know what to do or what had happened.

"How?" asked Rey.

He stared at the hilt on the ground, barely hearing Rey's question.

She released her lightsaber and they were plunged into twilight. It was then he was able, once again, to focus. To look at her and think critically.

"I think I … might know," he said, and he lunged for the Jedi texts. Pulling one open, he began to flip through it, desperate to find the answer, needing the answer. "What was it… where was it? It was so long ago…"

He took another one, growing frustrated in the darkening night.

"I need light," he said.

She ignited her lightsaber staff and held it aloft, above him, the brilliant glow bringing the pages of Jedi text into sharp relief.

He searched, and searched, both searching the texts and searching his mind for memories. He hated those memories, the ones of being trained as a Jedi. They brought him fear and fury, but they were where the answers lay. Despite his desperation to know, the searching brought him frustration and agitation.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"There was a record of a Sith lightsaber crystal being purified from domination," he said. "I could have sworn it was in here, somewhere…"

"Ahsoka Tano?" asked Rey.

Kylo stopped everything he was doing and looked up at her.

"She purified two crystals retrieved from the Sixth Brother's lightsaber," said Rey. "They were healed and turned white."

He was, perhaps, staring at her. Perhaps dumbfounded. Possibly even open-mouthed.

"I have had the books for months, you know," she said.

"You've studied them all?" he asked.

"Of course I have!" she said, as if that was a ridiculous question. She then pointed at one and said, "It's in that one."

He grabbed it unquestioningly and opened it, finding the passage, near the end.

 _"She began the process of building a new pair of lightsabers, and heard the kyber crystals in the Brother's double-bladed lightsaber sing to her. During her battle with the Brother, Tano used the force to pull the crystals from his lightsaber, defeating him. She purified the crystals and they turned from red to white,"_ read Kylo.

The implications of that sunk in.

He stood at once to face Rey.

"You did this!" he accused, pointing at his lightsaber hilt.

"I most certainly did not!" she retorted.

He reached over and grabbed the hilt and turned it on, white, brilliant, with its grinding hum.

"Explain this, then," he demanded, pointing at the blade with a sharp finger.

She seemed at a loss for words, but then she gathered herself and pointed out her white-bladed staff and said, "If I did that, then you did _this_."

"Impossible!" he replied.

"It is one hundred percent possible!" she rejoined, and then, leaning in, she said more confidentially: "Think about it, Ben… it takes both the dark and the light to make a white light saber. You've corrupted mine and I've purified yours."

In the time it took her to tell him that, he knew she was right. He'd already figured it out, though he didn't like it. He wasn't _comfortable_ with it.

He released his lightsaber blade and shoved the hilt in his belt.

He wasn't sure how he felt about this whole, new world.

"Well," he said. "Now you have a lightsaber."

She released her lightsaber staff and darkling twilight surrounded them again.

There was a tense moment of silence between them.

"Thank you," she said.

"I'm going back to my ship," he said.

"Wait," she said.

"No," he said. He was still stinging from the tainting of his lightsaber. He _didn't_ like it.

As he moved to leave, she grabbed his arm with her hand and he felt a wave of power rush through him, threatening him and his set ways. He jerked his arm away from her.

"Don't," he clipped, "touch me."

He needed to think. Away from her. _Especially_ away from her touch.

"What are you going to do about the war?" she asked, perhaps pleading.

"What do you mean what am I going to do about it?" he asked.

"Are you going to stop it?" she asked.

"Why would I do that?" he asked.

"Because," she began, then glanced around, as if searching for words, "because of this."

"No," he said.

"Ben," she said. "There is light in you, I know it. I've felt it."

"And there is dark in you," he said, knowing.

She fell silent.

He looked over her still form, blue and grey in the shadows, but lit along the edges by a sliver of moonlight. He found himself wishing things could be different, somehow, but the First Order was inevitably going to find the Resistance and there was inevitably going to be a war. It didn't concern him, and it shouldn't concern her.

"Join me, Rey," he said.

"You still don't understand, do you?" she asked him, and he noticed her voice shook.

Frustration rose again within him, familiar, agonizing.

"It is you who does not understand!" he spat, and he turned away.

As he stalked back towards his ship, he rediscovered the feeling of being imbalanced, and he hated it.

-_IV_-


	5. Reach

_**A/N: Soooo... I saw TLJ again last night. It's still as amazing/exhilarating/incredibly-frustrating as the first time, maybe more? Ugh, the Reylo pains are real.**_

 _ **Also - I learned those big triangley Empire/First Order ships are called "star destroyers"! I guess it's better I use the real name instead of "big triangley ships" in the descriptions here. Or maybe not!**_

 _ **To answer a few questions in the comment section:**_

 _ **Q: (Regarding the lightsaber crystal purification scene) Is that canon? Did ahsoka tano really turn a Sith lightsaber?**_

 _ **A: That's canon! Ahsoka Tano really did turn a Sith lightsaber crystal, and it turned white. My assumption for this is because if you add green, blue, and red light together, it makes white, but I'm not canon, just into science. (Source: "kyber crystals" canon page, Wookieepedia, The Star Wars Wiki)**_

 _ **Q: W** **hat color was Rey's staffsaber supposed to be? (Regarding if it hadn't been messed with by Kylo Ren and turned white)**_

 _ **A: I can only conjecture (I try to conjecture with everything as close to canon as possible), but I assume Rey's lightsaber would have been somewhere in the expected blue to green Jedi spectrum.**_

 _ **Thanks for the comments/questions and follows/favs! Enjoy the new chapter!**_

-_V_-

Leaving the planet where Rey was turned out to be harder than he thought. The force within him objected, like a tearing; a ripping of matter and energy. It didn't matter, though. He had to get away.

She called what she'd done to his lightsaber "purification", but to him it felt like corruption. Corruption of what he believed in, what he'd long thought to be true, and corruption of his chosen path in life. It knocked him off-balance, as if an opening had crashed though his carefully constructed life, and through that broken fissure he could see something else; something that didn't go with what he'd previously believed; something that brought all his previous beliefs into question.

He seethed as he gripped the controls of his ship. He felt as if he could rip them from the dashboard.

Blue atmosphere thinned, faded, and the stars brightened and multiplied until he was thrust into deep, comfortable, velvet black. An exhale escaped him, tinged with relief.

As he stalked from his ship within the docking bay of the First Order's headquarters, he was met by General Hux.

"Report," he commanded the general.

"We've brought most of the planets in the system under our control," said Hux, adding: "Supreme Commander."

Kylo Ren glanced at Hux. That was an interesting pause.

"Have you found the rebels?" he asked the general, knowing the answer.

"No," said Hux, glancing up at him, and then at his ship. "Was there any sign on them on that planet?"

"What do you think?" asked Kylo, as if he'd just asked the stupidest question imaginable.

Hux didn't seem to care to respond.

"However," said Kylo, "Perhaps a more thorough search is in order."

"Yes, sir," said Hux.

"Gather everyone in the officers' room and we will regroup to further our search," said Kylo, moving towards the nearest corridor.

"Supreme Commander Ren," called Hux after Kylo had passed, causing him to stop to turn around.

"What is it?" asked Kylo.

"I'm just curious," said Hux. "Hasn't the … ah, _force_ … told you anything of where they are?"

"Yes," said Kylo.

Hux watched him with a raised eyebrow.

"I said we will keep looking," said Kylo, shutting that conversation down. He turned and left.

He was getting a strange resonance from Hux, a dissonant frequency. He'd have to deal with that, later.

As he walked down the corridor, he found his hand mindlessly touching the lightsaber hilt at his waist. He felt as if he'd lost a part of it. That is was no longer solely his; that it was, strangely, _theirs._ But yet, he had a part of her lightsaber as well. Something about that appealed to him, though he couldn't work out why.

Regardless, he felt anxious about the idea of brandishing it again in front of the First Order. It was not the same. They would notice it was white, not red, and what conclusions would they draw?

He drew a breath and let it out, feeling as if his vice-grip on power had been compromised by Rey, somehow. What had she done to him? He discovered he was gripping the hilt of his lightsaber with a white-knuckled intensity, and so he released it and moved on towards the meeting room.

Once he'd reached it, the room with the massive polished monolith-table, he found he was alone, so he took a moment to open the ghost map and review the First Order's holdings.

There was more red now, and scarce few bits of white left in the galaxy. But now the white, glowing shreds reminded him of _her_ and whatever she had done to him. Would they find her today? Tomorrow?

"Supreme Commander," said Hux's voice, arriving with a number of officers. "You've arrived ahead of us."

Kylo glanced at Hux.

"Don't you require refreshment after your sojourn on the planet?" the general asked.

"No," said Kylo, shutting the map down and turning to devise a plan with his officers to find the Rebellion but also, carefully, to not find them.

-_O_-

He woke slowly, distantly aware of _her_ in his consciousness.

As the seconds progressed, his awareness of his surroundings fell in one by one; the darkness of his room, lit by a smattering of stars and the silver light of a distant moon through a large picture window on the right hand of his bed, the twisted shadows of his bedcoverings yielding a tactile, breathing warmth.

But he also saw _her._

 _From where he lay on his side he could see her, reposed, asleep, a filtering of sunlight brightening her skin in a radiant bloom, with shimmering dust motes drifting in the sunrays above her silent form._

 _He began by wondering how could they have connected while unconscious, but his questions fell away as he drifted into the rare chance to watch her sleep. Her hair was down, partially cast across her pillow in a haloed stasis of motion, and despite the pale tunic she wore and the white blanket which covered the most of her, her shoulder was bare and glowing in the yellow-gold of sunrise._

 _She was lying on her side, as well, towards him. He wondered if she would wake. As he watched her, he found himself hoping she would wake._

 _"Rey," he said, his voice soft._

 _He watched his voice and his consciousness rouse her, increment by increment. At last, her eyes opened to see him, and she didn't seem surprised at all. She was silent and resigned._

 _"Ben," she said, watching him._

 _The way she said his name should have been outlawed. If he could get away with making ridiculous laws of that sort, he would have done so, for so criminal was the power she wielded over him when she said it in that way he found it entirely unfair._

 _He watched her in the glow of sunlight, and she watched him, he supposed, silhouetted by the moon behind him. After some moments passed he found himself longing for the feeling of the force between them when they were truly together._

 _"Are you okay?" was what she asked, and the mundanity of the question made him want to laugh._

 _"No," he replied, but he found himself awkwardly asking after too-long: "Are you?"_

 _"No," she said._

 _She let her hand fall out towards him, like the unfurling of a lily petal, resting on the flat surface where she was lying endless parsects away, a wordless invitation, but to him it was a challenge. She just left it there, as if daring him to touch it._

 _"We're going to escape, today," she said._

 _He watched her while maintaining an intense awareness of her hand._

 _"Using the information on avoiding the First Order's communication array and aerial monitoring you told me," she said._

 _He didn't reply, not finding enough pleasure or displeasure with the prospect to say a word either way._

 _She let another moment pass before saying more._

 _"Thank you again for helping me build my lightsaber," she said. "And for… helping us."_

 _He swallowed, knowing what he had done._

 _She pushed her hand closer to him, like an offering of communion, but he feared what he would see. He didn't know if he could trust it, he didn't know if his previous vision had been real or manipulated by Snoke, and he supposed most of all he was afraid it wouldn't be real, because he wanted it, more than anything else, to be real and true and inevitable._

 _"Where are you going to go?" he asked, shoving his gaze away from her hand._

 _"Won't you know?" she asked._

 _"Yes," he said._

 _"We have sympathizers in the Efleon system," she said. "Quite a few, and, unlike most resistance groups, these ones have some money."_

 _She looked wry over the continually destitute plight of rebellions._

 _"And I'm hoping to have the time to search for those sensitive to the force," she said, and he felt a wave of jealousy crash over him._

 _He wanted to be the only person she knew who was sensitive to the force. It was what he had with her. What if she met someone else who could use the force, someone else who… he stopped himself before he went too far down that road, but it put a particular anxiety and panic in him that made him afraid to lose her._

 _She watched him, and though he tried to keep his thoughts to himself, it was extra difficult under these circumstances. She might not have known everything he was thinking, but she felt something, he was sure of it._

 _"Ben," she said._

 _He rolled onto his back to look up at the ceiling of his room and away from her._

 _"Ben," she said again._

 _He closed his eyes._

 _"Look at me," she said, his commander, and he did. He couldn't not look at her. She lay like a glowing oasis of warmth in the cold still of his room, golden, brilliant, beautiful. Stars, why was it so impossible!_

 _He reached out to touch her hand, wanting it, wanting something, something that could help him make sense of his place, of her place, of their place in all this, and to alleviate the terror that the very wisp of an idea of losing her put into his mind._

 _As he reached towards her fingers, the golden of sunlight struck his skin, warming it with a depth the sanctified lights of a starship never could. He touched her, the pad of his fingertips to hers, the faintest touch, and he felt it; the force flow, limited by time and space and distance, but there, between them, balancing, reveling in their force-driven proximity, crushing space between them into a new dimension. The power was so very great._

 _He watched her shortened breathing, he knew she was as stricken as he was. They were meant to be together. It was true, it was not a false idea placed by Snoke, it was TRUE._

 _His eyes closed of their own volition; he was overcome._

 _"Rey," he said, then he gazed upon her. "Do you see it?"_

 _"Yes," she said, and it came out in a whisper-sigh he wished he could bottle for safekeeping._

 _"Then join me," he said._

 _"No," she said._

 _The force between them swirled with agitation._

 _"You," she said, "must join me."_

 _"That makes no sense at all!" he said._

 _He held the most power, he would be able to give them the most ability to rule with the force, with their dual perfection. To give that up for a pointless rebel cause would be idiotic, irrational, impossible. Why could she not see simple reason? Why was she so stubborn to a fault?_

 _He pulled his hand away from hers._

 _She raised herself on an elbow to regard him._

 _"What you are doing makes no sense at all," she said. "You're doing what you did to make your lightsaber, Ben. You're forcing the galaxy to your will, when what you must do is attune yourself to it."_

 _He rose on his own elbow to retort._

 _"If I were to decide I'd merely attune myself to the galaxy, then General Hux would have my head on a pike within an hour, and then you'd have him and the First Order to contend with, instead of me," he said. "And despite your strength in the force, Rey, you are not strong enough to take down the entire First Order. Your head would reside, disconnected from your body, beside mine and the Jedi would truly be ended."_

 _"You don't know that," she said, shaking her head, and then she glanced at her hand. "Could you not see what I saw?"_

 _"I don't believe we share the same vision," he said._

 _"I wonder if we do," she said._

 _"How could we?" he asked._

 _"Perhaps we do," she said._

 _"Impossible," he said, allowing himself to fall back onto his bed and returning his eyes to the ceiling._

 _There was a long moment where he knew she was watching him, silent, beautiful, perfect. He wanted to watch her, to fill his eyes with the golden sight of her, but he couldn't make himself. He was too frustrated._

 _"I have to go, now," she said, and it was then he glanced back at her, catching the last glimpse, like grasping after wafting smoke that he knew would slip through his fingers unfelt._

His room became cold, sterile, blue, silver, and gray, no longer warmed by the ocher tones of her radiant sunrise.

He let out a cry of frustration and flung his pillow across the room.

-_V_-

"Supreme Commander Ren," said an officer sitting at the nearest observation control. "We've found the rebels."

"Excellent," said Kylo Ren, though it wasn't what he was thinking. "Begin pursuit navigations."

 _"Rey," he thought, "You need to get out of there."_

"Where were they?" asked General Hux from nearby.

"Lazda 44O," said the officer.

"Lazda 44O?" remarked Hux, approaching to view the star map. After a moment of analysis, he turned to look at Kylo. "Isn't that where you went to survey?"

"Yes," replied Kylo.

"Was there nothing there, then?" asked Hux.

"There was not," replied Kylo.

"And yet… here they are?" asked Hux, as if an explanation was needed.

Kylo darkened his gaze upon Hux, who backed down after seeing the threat in Kylo's eyes. The general turned to the officer.

"How have they eluded us?" he asked.

"I don't know," said the officer, working at his controls.

"Navigational pursuit engaged," said another officer, and they, along with two other star destroyers, fired like a plasma-shot from a rifle through space and into the orbit of Lazda 44O.

There Kylo Ren could see what had grown of the Resistance after a few months of building. It wasn't terrible. The Millennium Falcon was there, along with a number of other ships, most larger than it. He wondered if the Falcon was the one that held _her._ He couldn't know. There was a certain degree of acute uncertainty to this whole exercise.

"Deploy TIE Fighters," ordered Kylo Ren. "We have to disable them before they have a chance to jump into lightspeed."

"TIE fighters deployed," responded an officer.

 _"Rey," he called in thought. "You need to jump."_

He watched the familiar array of TIE fighters arc with delicate precision from the star destroyer towards the Resistance fleet.

 _"Rey," he called again, his thoughts growing frantic. "NOW."_

 _He saw her then, turned to see him, that untrusted look of pure gratitude on her face._

 _"Goodbye, Ben," she said._

The TIE fighters managed only a few shots to the Resistance shields before he watched the ships stretch, lighten, and plummet away into elsewhere. Safe. _Safe._

He released a shaking breath.

She was safe.

But she was no longer within reach.

-_O_-


	6. Distance

_**A/N: Alert! Alert! Technical difficulties abound! So it looks like fanfiction dot net is having some issues with the doc manager. I initially thought, since I'm travelling, being on a hotel internet connection was causing the issue, but when it persisted once I got back to a stable connection, I did some research and found a workaround.**_

 _ **PSA: If you are an author and are having difficulty uploading documents (Processing error won't allow you to upload anything), the current best workaround is to use an existing chapter in your doc manager and edit it to reflect your new content. It seems we can't create new docs, but can edit existing ones.**_

 _ **Back to the story! Thanks for reading!**_

-_VI_-

 _"Can you tell where I am?" she asked him._

 _"Yes," he said. He always knew where she was. He couldn't ignore where she was, even if he wanted to._

 _"We've gotten an amazing addition to our cause," she said, seeming excited, perhaps forgetting who she was talking to: the supreme leader of the power which she was fighting against. Kylo Ren just let her go on, for there was something about her enthusiasm which intrigued him. "They've funds, due to a longstanding kyber crystal mine. Old money, I suppose. But they're longtime supporters of the Jedi religion, though they laid low while the First Order came through."_

 _Kylo didn't like the way she brought up the Jedi as a religion. A philosophy, perhaps, but a religion? Religion was for things unproven, things that required faith. He knew everything of which the Jedi professed, and it was as much a matter of faith as if you preferred eating jam or honey with your toast. He let it slide, though, preferring not to get into semantics with her, nor to argue the point. Not now. Not yet._

 _She was going on about the additions to her fleet, how they weren't going to have to wonder about adequate medical facilities anymore because they now had regained a fine medical frigate for their numbers._

 _He simply listened and even nodded when appropriate. After a while she seemed to notice his taciturn countenance and he watched her awareness turn from her universe to him like the shifting ray of a lighthouse. The brilliance when her full attention was laid upon him was momentarily blinding._

 _"I'm sorry, Ben," she said. "How have you been?"_

 _"Fine," he said._

 _"No, you're not," she said._

 _"What does it matter?" he asked._

 _"It matters to me," she replied._

 _"Why?" he asked._

 _"Because," she said, casting about for her answer, "it just does."_

 _"Unacceptable," he replied, turning his gaze elsewhere._

 _She made a little noise of protest, as if he was being difficult._

 _He simply waited for her to go on._

 _"Ben," she said, and his gaze returned to her. "I have found that… I appreciate what you've done for us recently. For me. I… despite the fighting and the arguing and the, well, fundamental disagreements in basic life philosophy-,"_

 _"Does this have a point?" he asked, his patience shortened by her bringing up their 'fundamental disagreements in basic life philosophy' which could have been easily solved if she would just think about them for a moment instead of going on about the glorified Jedi all the time._

 _"Yes," she said, looking a little annoyed, "It does."_

 _"Then I can't wait to hear it," he said, though his enthusiasm was at a low point._

 _"The point is," she said, pointedly, giving him a certain glance which displayed her vague annoyance, "that, despite the past, I… think you've changed."_

 _"Have I?" he asked, daring her to articulate how she thought he'd 'changed'._

 _"Yes," she said, burrowing in stubbornly. "You have."_

 _"Tell me how," he said._

 _"You're helping me, for one thing," she said. "You've been protecting me, teaching me, treating me as someone you…"_

 _She stopped._

 _"Someone I what?" he asked._

 _"Someone you care about," she said, spitting it all out._

 _He leaned back in his chair._

 _"Is that what you think?" he asked._

 _"It's what I know," she said, though her gaze faltered as if she wasn't sure she was making the right choice to say it._

 _Something about this conversation made him tense, nervous, and resistant. His hackles went up in response to her exposing his emotions to their combined view. In Ben's experience there was only one reason someone would use emotional attachment._

 _"You're using me," he said. "Aren't you?"_

 _"What?" she asked, appearing surprised. "No! Why would I-,"_

 _"Oh, please," he said. "Why would you? Why wouldn't you, if you could? How much has my protection benefitted you already?"_

 _Her gaze shifted, moving from surprise to her brow settling in grief._

 _"Ben, that's not how I work," she said._

 _"How should I know that?" he asked. "It wasn't that long ago that you called me a monster with all the sureness of your own hand in front of your eyes."_

 _"You were a monster," she said, and that gave him pause._

 _There was a weighted moment, an unsaid question in the air that left a vacuum, one which needed to be filled._

 _"You're not anymore," she said finally._

 _He didn't believe her. He couldn't believe her._

 _He took a weight, a heavy stone from his desk and threw it against the wall, using his strength and the force, and it left a crack, a fissure in the perfect, polished surface, before the rock skittered to the floor. He stared at it from his chair, realizing his breath had gone short and that Rey had gone silent._

 _"Ben-," she began, but he cut her off by vaulting from his chair to stand._

 _"Stop," he commanded, and she did._

 _He felt strung as tightly as a bowstring._

 _"I have an empire to manage," he clipped, leaving her behind._

-_O_-

"Has the… ahem, _force…_ mentioned to you where the rebels are, by any chance?" asked General Hux as they sat together in the corner of the monolith-table.

"No," said Kylo Ren.

Hux watched him.

Kylo Ren leaned forward, his arms resting on the table.

"They gave up their territory in the Lazda system and, as far as I'm concerned, they no longer present a threat to us," said Kylo. "We should put our efforts into putting down insurrections elsewhere."

"There aren't many," said Hux. "It's been fortunate that, with the dissolving of the Republic, the Money found us to be the best investment."

"Of course we are," said Kylo. "We're organized, efficient, and use a lot of weapons."

Hux chuckled and leaned back in his chair, then glanced at Kylo Ren.

"Tell me if I'm wrong," said Hux, studying Kylo, which action made Kylo's hackles involuntarily rise. He didn't like being studied, or being analyzed. He trusted neither. "But it almost seems as if you don't care what happens. As if your heart isn't in it, so to speak."

Kylo observed Hux, who shifted in his chair.

"I have successfully brought the galaxy under the rule of the First Order," said Kylo Ren. "That isn't something that can be done if one simply 'doesn't care'."

Hux waved a hand vaguely, as if it mattered not.

"Clearly, I am terrible at reading force-persons," he said.

"'Force-persons'?" inquired Kylo Ren, squinting.

"It's just that you used to seem much more… invested," said Hux.

"Is that so," said Kylo with little inflection.

"I don't believe I've seen you fly into a rage in several months," said Hux.

Kylo found himself nearly rolling his eyes in disbelief.

"Is the frequency of flying into a rage your gauge for investment in a venture?" asked Kylo.

"I haven't seen you raging since… well," said Hux, undeterred by Kylo's question, "the last day you saw that _girl."_

"Would you like me to?" asked Kylo, feeling his expression darken, and not liking the subject of Rey on Hux's lips.

Hux watched him carefully, and Kylo didn't trust him an inch.

"Of course, not," said Hux diplomatically. "You're a better leader without the emotional outbursts."

Now Kylo felt as if Hux were condescending.

"Whatever happened to that girl, do you know?" asked Hux.

"No," said Kylo, but the subject made him feel tense.

"You tried to destroy her, didn't you?" asked Hux.

Kylo remained silent.

"I do wonder how she is so powerful to overcome you twice in combat, murder Snoke, kill all of his guards," said Hux, too smoothly. "And escape both times."

Kylo felt his fists tighten.

"Yet…," said Hux, giving Kylo a pointed glance, "she spared you. Both times. Oh, she hurt you once in the forest, perhaps left you for dead, but in the throne room… there wasn't more than a scratch on you."

"I don't know why she spared me," said Kylo.

"She even left your weapon with you," said Hux, glancing down at Kylo's belt. "Your lightsaber. It seems like odd behavior for someone who had just killed the Supreme Leader and all his guards to leave his apprentice untouched and unarmed."

"What do you think you're getting at?" asked Kylo.

"Is she a Jedi?" asked Hux.

"Why don't you ask her?" asked Kylo, rising to leave.

"Why don't you?" Hux asked him, and Kylo paused, wondering what Hux knew. He was going to have to cut this off at the root.

Kylo Ren leaned over the table and used the force to put a very distinct level of pressure on Hux, pushing him down into his chair. It wasn't enough to hurt, not even enough to threaten to hurt, but it was enough to reassert his power over the general. Hux would not be able to move until Kylo said he could move.

"General Hux," said Kylo Ren, "conjecture does not suit you, and if you continue, it will compromise your effectiveness as a general in _my_ empire."

He made sure the threat in his words was scarcely hidden, applying an increasing amount of force pressure on Hux.

"Yes," said Hux, having to struggle to get out the words, "Supreme Leader Ren."

-_VI_-

 _He found himself only wanting to gaze at her, into her eyes. There was a depth there, a solace. It was the promise of balance, of him not having to apply constant Jedi meditation techniques to keep himself from going mad, no, it would come from her, from the balance she supplied him… someday. Someday he would have it, when she figured out all that Jedi nonsense was, in fact, nonsense._

Kylo Ren was sitting in the middle of the ancient ruins of a Jedi temple, actually. They'd come there to negotiate with some arms dealers who dealt in rare and innovative technology, and afterward, in off-hours, Kylo had time to explore the planet. It wasn't a terrible place. Surrounded by lush greenery and the humidity and fresh scents of blooming tropical flowers, this temple was a fallen testament to that which was inevitably impermanent; the Jedi beliefs. Maybe the Jedi got a few things right, but they got so much wrong. Kylo believed to follow blindly was the behavior of idiots. He'd always tried to find the truth of things, though it seemed as if everyone was trying to tell him the truth of things, all his life, without allowing him to make the choices for himself. Just reflecting on it stoked the fire of anger within him.

There was such a thing as having too much power, too early. Kylo was a firm believer in that.

 _"Ben," she said, bringing him back to her, and the conflict within him evaporated as he refocused on her. It was raining where she was. He watched the rain trickle down the oiled coat she wore._

 _"You should go inside," he said to her._

 _"But they're all in there," she said, glancing behind her._

 _"Yes, but-," he began, but she cut him off._

 _"I want to be here," she said. "With you."_

 _"Why?" he asked._

 _"Well," she said, "why would you want to be here talking with me?"_

 _He fell silent, wondering how to put it into words in the least horrible way possible._

 _She smiled at him and he lost his ability to make words._

 _"Yes," she said. "Exactly."_

 _"But we haven't answered each other's questions," he objected._

 _"Do we really need to?" she asked._

 _He found himself huffing a tiny laugh and glancing aside._

 _"No," she said, "I don't fully understand what there is between us. And yes, I feel guilty for keeping my communication with you a secret from the Resistance. I will assume you are experiencing the same?"_

 _"You may assume such," replied Ben, aloof but the humor wasn't lost on him._

 _"Except replace the Resistance with the First Order," said Rey after a moment's consideration, almost seeming awkward in her conversation. It was adorable._

 _"Naturally," he said, then: "Do you like your lightsaber?"_

 _"I love it," she said. "Now I see why you couldn't imagine being without yours."_

 _That made something of a smile cross his face._

 _"I've found a few people who are force-sensitive," said Rey, changing tack, "and am training them in the ways of the Jedi."_

 _His smile ghosted away in an instant._

 _"Is that so," he said, breaking his eye contact with her._

 _"Yes," she said, "and it's good, Ben, you said yourself there were benefits to your Jedi training."_

 _He drew a breath and let it out shortly._

 _"Ben," she said. "It's all I have."_

 _"That is not all you have," he said, shifting his eyes back to her, his voice clipped, perhaps harsher than he meant it to be._

 _Her gaze furrowed, she watched him for a moment, as if trying to discern his presence._

 _"But I don't have you," she said, as if that made her sad._

 _It infuriated him._

 _"Only due to your own stubbornness!" he retaliated, yet he caught himself just after, reigning himself in, pulling his fury tight, close, hidden. He forced himself to calm and continued: "Rey… do you not sense what we are capable of?"_

 _"I do," she replied. "I know."_

 _He released a shaky breath and dropped his gaze to the stone, mossed floor of the ruined temple, feeling a certain fatigue, a certain hopelessness, and a certain frustration._

 _"You… balance me," he said, feeling exposed by such an admission._

 _She was silent. After a moment he looked up to see her gazing at him._

 _"I miss you," she said, and it pierced him to hear it. She drew a breath to continue speaking and he hung on every word. "I miss the way it feels when I am near you, the push and pull of the force, the way you seem like… like some kind of wild animal tamed by my presence."_

 _She huffed a little laugh and said, "That sort of thing is addictive, you know. Having someone make you feel so important… when you've never felt important in your life."_

 _She wasn't just important… she was everything. He felt shocked when that thought ran through his mind and he knew the truth of it._

 _"But I have to be honest, Ben," she went on, "the potential power between us is terrifying."_

 _He watched her. He'd never been afraid of power._

 _"We must use it for good in the galaxy," she said, so certain of her convictions, "and I'm afraid we will never come to terms until I am sure that will be the case."_

 _He glanced away from her. Hearing her release a soft sigh, he looked up to see she'd leaned against a tree and was resting her gaze on him._

 _"That said," she began, crossing her arms, "when will I see you again?"_

 _"Do you mean," he said, not having the chance to finish._

 _"In person," she said._

 _"Why?" he asked._

 _"Do you have to ask?" she asked._

 _"I want to hear it from you," he said._

 _"The force between us," she said. "I want to feel it again."_

 _"I want to touch you," he said, surprised by his own sudden admission, but meaning it to his bones._

 _Rey looked surprised, as if she didn't expect it, as if he'd said something rash and forward, but as if she felt it, too. She seemed to try to brush it off as less than it was, and she held out her hand towards him, wet and gray in the pallid rain._

 _"You can," she said._

 _He glanced at her hand._

 _"That's not enough," he said._

 _Her hand drew back slightly, the wilted offering._

 _"You know it isn't the same," he said._

 _"It isn't," she admitted._

 _"It's like an echo of what could be," he said._

 _"It's all we have right now," she said._

 _"I can wait," he said._

 _"I can't," she said, and his eyes shot to her._

 _She looked away as if she were embarrassed, as if she'd said something she hadn't meant to, yet he found her admittance gloriously dazzling, and it took a moment for the shimmering after-sparks of hearing it from her to die down before he could formulate his response. He removed his glove._

Later, in his silent hours, he would recall the beguiling sensations of her hand against his, of the way she caught her breath when he laced his fingers between hers, wet with rain, yet warm, almost hot; of the force, echoed though it was, swirling between them, mixing, _promising_ the shared vision they saw every time they touched, the impressions of perfect balance, and of his increased slavish devotion to its inevitable coming.

He could not have enough. He wondered how he could manage to see her. He found himself cursing that there was nearly half a galaxy's distance between them.

Yet, he could not for the life of him figure out how they were to come together in balance while they still believed so diversely on how they were to do it. She would not let go of the Jedi Order. He could not let go of the First Order, to do so would be idiotic. It would be madness. And he would _not_ go back to being a Jedi. No one, not even _her_ , could make him do that.

-_O_-


	7. Dark or Light

-_VII_-

Time passed, as was its wont as the 4th dimension.

It was glorious, this light-speed universe in which they lived, where they could communicate across time and space, defying all things, pushing forward into higher laws of physics, or the higher laws of the force.

And no one knew. This was the aspect of it in which Kylo Ren gloried most. To have something so secret and yet so incredible, to hold in their combined hands such unfathomable power, and yet to live in the anticipation of knowing it would come to fruition someday and the galaxy had no idea of its coming brought Kylo an immense level of innate pleasure. He would do everything in his formidable power to make sure he never lost it.

They continued to talk, almost daily, and their discussions were sometimes arguments, sometimes filled with fury and rage, but, conversely, their discussions could often be serene, even mundane. He felt as if she were with him almost all the time. He would have missed her too much, otherwise. In the meantime, he worked tirelessly towards their impending reunion, in the flesh, so to speak. It didn't help that she was in such a useless corner of the galaxy; there was never a good reason to go there. If she made some noise, maybe, but that would have the unfortunate side effect of putting her in danger, and that's the last thing he wanted.

Gradually, it had become more difficult to control General Hux and Kylo had begun to consider the necessity of replacing his most valuable general. He didn't want to. It wasn't easy to train someone to do what Hux did, and to do it as well. He wasn't even sure if he could. He found himself procrastinating acting on that front.

On this night, however (if one could call it "night" in the vacuum of space), General Hux was the last thing on his mind, and _she_ was the first.

 _He could see her sitting down with her back against a rock in the deepening rays of evening sun. One knee was bent, perched up, with her elbow resting upon it. She wore the same sort of thing she always did. She was always so practical, so mundane with her clothing; he had wondered many times what she would look like in finer things, but she seemed not to care for those. She was staring off into the distance._

 _"What are you looking at?" he asked her, and she noticed him there._

 _There was a smile that crossed her face at his arrival, which gave him pleasure, yet it was pleasure he still could not fully trust._

 _"Oh," she said, "it's the most beautiful sunset over the water."_

 _He became more acutely aware of the sterile stars in his bedroom window._

 _"Describe it to me," he requested._

 _More than the sunset's description, he just wanted to hear her voice and watch her face as she tried to describe it._

 _"Well," she said, looking a little daunted by the request, "it's… red, and orange, and then yellow… um… and there's a lot of it…"_

 _"That's a terrible description," he said, though he found it amusing._

 _"It glows," she said, giving him a sidelong glance, and determined to do better, "and each hue blends into the next with a million colors. It's… almost as if the beauty comes from my eyes not being able to manage it all, as if the beauty comes from lack of comprehension, or because I cannot possibly understand it fully."_

 _He leaned back from where he was sitting on the floor, using a polished black wall for support._

 _"I cannot understand what I am looking at, not entirely," she said, "and that's why it is so beautiful."_

 _"Interesting," he said, looking at her._

 _"It… would be nice if you were here," she said, glancing at the ground and picking up a pebble._

 _"It would," he said, and then she looked at him and he felt as if he saw a million incomprehensible colors._

 _"But I guess you probably wouldn't like it," she said._

 _"Why wouldn't I?" he asked._

 _"I'm teaching the force sensitive the ways of the Jedi," she said, and after he glanced away, she added wryly: "It would bore you to tears."_

 _That made him almost laugh, but not quite._

 _"We need to talk about this," he said._

 _"Good," she said._

 _"I have fundamental disagreements with the philosophies of the Jedi order," said Kylo Ren._

 _"You don't say," said Rey, a wry smile teasing at her lips._

 _"Do you want to know what they are?" he asked._

 _"I am going to assume that using the force for power and gain is one of them," she said._

 _"Wrong," he said. "Sometimes, yes, that is how I use the force. But that is not always how I use it. I don't deny myself what is necessary for whatever circumstances I'm in."_

 _She kept her eyes trained on him, as if waiting for more._

 _"In this way I don't mirror the philosophies of the Sith, either," he said. "They use fury, pain, and desire to manipulate the force."_

 _"I've seen you do that," she said. "I've seen you use all three to your ends."_

 _"I have," he said, "but that isn't always the case. I use Jedi methods as well… even daily."_

 _"Then am I to think you prefer to be a free agent in the force, subscribing to neither belief?" she asked._

 _"Or perhaps one can say subscribing to the best of both beliefs," he said._

 _"Then which are you?" she asked, peering at him. "Dark or light?"_

 _"How can I truly be either?" he asked. "How can anyone? Is a man made of pure light or pure darkness? If made of pure light, he would never know the dark, and live in a state of ignorance. If made of pure dark, he would self-destruct, just like all Sith. The Jedi and the Sith are myths, pure impossibilities for any man, and flawed constructs by an ancient people who, for all we know, didn't intend these philosophies to be taken as literally as they are now."_

 _Rey gazed at him, and he knew her mind was turning. It had been a relief to get these words out, to rest at last upon her conscience._

 _"Rey," he said, realizing he liked the feel of her name from his mouth, "A man is both light and dark. True power in the force comes from the balance of both; from the wisdom of knowing both light and dark, from possessing both, from **knowing**_ _both, and then making the choice of what to do with it."_

 _He saw her breath had gone short. He'd struck a chord with her. She knew there was something to what he'd said, and all at once he felt a relief flood through him, that someone could understand these thoughts that had plagued him for all his life. He'd been shoehorned by one side or another for too long, and it chafed. Now, with Snoke defeated and with him in charge, he was finally able to act as an agent unto himself. It should have been perfect, wonderful, brilliant, but it lacked her. She was his other half; the sun to his moon and stars. His balance. There was so much more he could do, if he had her by his side._

 _He wanted her to see that, so badly… too badly. It clouded his judgment. He knew this._

 _"Ben," she said, "I need to think about this."_

 _He leaned back on the wall, observing her, knowing time would be the best seasoning of what he'd just said to her, but not wanting her to leave. He felt insecure, exposed; he'd told her things no one would ever listen to, not his Jedi master, nor his master in the darkness. Neither believed him; both thought he was a foolish child with illusions of grandeur, but there had always been something inside of him that told him they were both wrong. Rey was the only one who received his beliefs as if they might have merit. As if they're something worth thinking about._

 _He didn't want to let her go, but he would have to._

 _"Sure," he said. "Take all the time you need."_

 _That last part was incredibly difficult to say._

-_O_-

Two days and two nights passed in total darkness. He could neither sense her nor communicate with her. He was cut off from her entirely. He was dead.

While 48 hours may not be very long by some accounts, when one is in the midst of those 48 hours and they are not numbered and could, very possibly, continue on for an interminable amount of time, those 48 hours can seem like eternity.

There were a number of things Kylo Ren did during those hours. He ruled. He fell into at least two fully realized rages. He was distracted and furious and in despair and deeply afraid. He was, as far as he knew, in total and complete darkness.

He could not bear the prospect of losing her. He didn't want to face the vast, cruel vacuum of space without her. It was as if she were his beating heart, and without her he was clenched, asphyxiated, and slowly dying.

He didn't sleep, nor eat. He paced. He practiced military drills, to the exhaustion of others. He tried to meditate, but failed. He wrote pages and pages of his fury and frustration upon a cache of paper he owned, and then burned it all. He broke many things.

At the end of the second night, full despair had found him, a cloak of darkness consumed him, and he broke; he wept. He had been transformed from the ruler of the universe into a miserable wretch, broken, despairing, cast upon the floor of his room like the shattered shards of a human, useless and formless.

After the breaking, exhaustion claimed him, and he slept.

He awoke slowly on the third day with the brilliant sun upon his face. It didn't make any sense, however, because he was in space, and so he sat up at once in alarm, ready to defend himself with the force, if necessary.

 _"Ben," she said, and he fell back upon his hands at the sight of her, glorious, radiant, sun-bathed, plain-clothed, and kind to him. "Why are you sleeping on the floor?"_

 _"Rey," he managed, shaken by her presence._

 _She approached him as if he were being silly, and then she looked concerned._

 _"Are you alright?" she asked._

 _"Yes," he said immediately, out of habit, rising from the floor. "Yes."_

 _She stood near him, though light-years away, and fixed him with her gaze. He probably looked terrible. Judging by her expression, he definitely looked terrible._

 _"You disappeared," he said, by way of explanation, "and I didn't know if you were coming back."_

 _Her eyes widened as he watched the implications of him looking terrible after thinking that she might be gone sink in. She moved through surprise, concern, disbelief, and then … something else. She looked endeared to him. He fought against the deep part of him that wanted to mistrust such a look._

 _She reached out all at once and touched his face, her explosive stardust touch. He heard himself catch his breath, a distant sound beyond the microcosm of agonies she'd breached. He tried not to flinch; he tried not to mistrust; he tried not to shirk away from this thing to which he was not accustomed._

 _"Did you doubt I would come back?" she asked him openly._

 _"Yes," he replied honestly._

 _Her eyes looked sad._

 _"You told me I could take all the time I needed," she said._

 _He broke away from her gaze._

 _"I missed you, too," she said, and he looked back at her. "But I had to consider everything you told me. I had to know for myself. It felt … important."_

 _He felt himself falling into a gaze upon her, helpless._

 _"You must know that I couldn't leave you," she said._

 _"How could I know that?" he asked._

 _"Because of this," she said, glancing around them. "The force. Us. Whatever this is between us."_

 _"How could I know that you might need me?" he asked, feeling rash, feeling a curious anger rise within him. "You have so many people to turn to; you have friends, you have … my own mother. What do you need with me? I should be nothing to you, or if anything, a trifle."_

 _She stared at him in disbelief, and her hand fell away from his face. At least he didn't have to deal with_ that _anymore._

 _"I am nothing to anyone else, why should I mean anything to you?" he said. "Unless what you want is my power, and then you would certainly not be alone in that."_

 _"I do not want your power," she said right away. "I have my own."_

 _"Then why are you here?" he asked, and then added: "Power is all I have."_

 _"I don't believe that," she said._

 _"Why don't you?" he said, angry. "It's the truth."_

 _"Shut up, Ben," she said sharply, and he did. "Do not tell me why I am here, or what must be the purpose of my coming to you. That is for me to tell."_

 _There was a moment of silence._

 _"Can I talk now?" he asked._

 _"Yes," she said._

 _"Will you tell me?" he asked._

 _"Yes," she said. "I've thought about what you've said before. I thought about it for two days. I've hardly slept at all, and everyone thinks I'm a distracted idiot."_

 _"I can empathize," he said._

 _"So after reasoning it out in my mind, I've decided that… I agree with you, Ben. I think you're right."_

 _His eyes widened._

 _"In overall philosophy," she said with intent, pointing at him. "Not particularly in the execution."_

 _"In overall philosophy," he replied, repeating her words and feeling a strange sensation that he suspected might be joy._

 _"Yes, but your execution is absolutely terrible," she said. "The First Order is terrible."_

 _"Maybe," he said, "but it would go on with or without me. Can you and I fight the First Order together, just us and a handful of resistance fighters? How effective would we be?"_

 _Rey glanced away._

 _"Not very," he said. "You know it's true."_

 _She seemed irritated by this particular truth._

 _"Then what," she said, casting about for answers, "we have to go along with the First Order just because of its power? Is there no way around it?"_

 _"If there is," he said, "Please tell me, Rey."_

 _She gazed at him. There was something deep in her gaze, this time, that drew him in._

 _"If there were," she began as she stepped closer to look up at him, "would you be interested?"_

 _He tried to comprehend her, though there was so much to take in._

 _"Maybe," he said._

 _She looked as if she might kiss him, though he didn't want her to, not like this._

 _"Ben," she sighed, perhaps relieved. "Now I know what to fight for."_

 _He looked down upon her, waiting for her to explain._

 _"Someone once told me that we will win not by fighting what we hate," she said, "but by saving what we love."_

 _These were the sorts of words that he didn't understand._

 _She smiled at him, a bright thing, as her sunrise bloom of a face lighted with excitement._

 _"Can you give me time?" she asked._

 _"Time for what?" he asked._

 _"To build the Resistance," she said._

 _"Isn't that what I've been doing?" he asked._

 _"Yes," she said, "Now give me more."_

 _"How much do you need?" he asked._

 _"All you can give me," she said._

 _"I will do what I can," he replied._

 _"Thank you," she said._

 _"Don't thank me," he clipped, feeling strange._

 _She touched him, her hand landing in the middle of his chest, splayed over his heart. It warmed him. He didn't want it to go away, he wanted to keep her hand there forever, his own personal heart safe-keeping._

 _"I'll thank you if I want," she said, obstinate, teasing, rebellious._

 _He loved it._

 _"I have to go," she said, "Get some sleep. You look terrible."_

And then she was gone, leaving nothing but echoes of sunshine and a warmth in the middle of his chest.

He felt reborn.

-_VII_-


	8. Ben

**_A/N: Happy New Year, Everyone! Much love!_**

 _ **I apologize that this chapter is slightly shorter; The style of this fic is denser than normal, if that makes sense, and a lot happens without much prattering and it wouldn't make sense to go on.**_

-_VIII_-

Kylo woke to an awareness, but it wasn't the sort of awareness to which he was accustomed. He knew someone was in the room with him. It wasn't Rey. He felt a prickling across the skin of his forearms and knew something was wrong.

All at once he heard the telltale shot of silenced blaster fire, and saw the familiar burst of light, red, thick, and just as quickly his hand came up in reflex and he stopped it with the force a foot from his bed, mid-air, simultaneously immobilizing his would-be assassin. He perhaps held him more tightly with the force than was necessary as he rose from his bed, but Kylo Ren was displeased.

Casting the glowing blaster burst into the side wall of his room, it erupted in a brief shower of sparks, lighting Kylo's assailant momentarily like a flash of sunlight, revealing his stiff form cowled in black death trooper's armor.

Kylo Ren yanked the blaster from his grasp with the force into his own hands and looked it over.

"An SE-14 pistol," remarked Kylo, "modified with a silencer. I didn't think they made these anymore."

He glanced at the man in death trooper armor.

"Has the Imperial Intelligence been reinstated without my consent?" he asked the man.

When no answer was forthcoming, Kylo said, "Of course, you won't talk."

Holding the pistol in his right hand, he used the force to remove the man's helmet, letting it clamber to the floor nearby. He inspected the man's face.

"I don't know you," said Kylo.

The man didn't reply, but even by starlight Kylo could see, or perhaps merely sense, the fear in his eyes. This was a look Kylo was familiar with; something that force-users must live with. It was as if merely because Kylo Ren uses the force, the punishment he might impose is far more terrifying than a blast to the face; even though both might end with the same result. It was the fear of the unknown and incomprehensible that made him terrible; fear of that which one cannot understand.

It was then that it occurred to Kylo how beauty and fear were similar in this way.

He knew he wasn't going to get an answer, but he had to ask, anyway.

"Who sent you?" he asked.

The man stayed silent.

"You know I can take whatever I want, don't you?" asked Kylo, almost tired of having to make it clear. Why didn't everyone know this already? "Either you can tell me, or I can force it from you. Your choice."

"You'll take nothing from me, _Jedi,_ " spat the man, a sneering on his face, and Kylo noticed a tiny movement before he had a chance to stop it, a pressing of thumb to fingertip of the man's gloved hand, and a jerk of his body.

"No!" cried Kylo, recognizing the poisoning as the man began to hurtle towards unconsciousness.

Using the force, Kylo threw all his strength into extracting anything he could from the man's mind before he could go dark.

He saw flashes of things. The gloves, fitted on, preparing for this night, the building of the silencer, the apparent _hate_ this man felt for Kylo, this man who Kylo had never met, and what he thought Kylo was. _A Jedi._ Where did he get such an idea? How could he be called such a thing?

Kylo searched for more, for who was behind this, but the darkness of unconsciousness and swift death drained the light from memory faster than he could search it. Eventually he was left alone in a starlit room with the corpse of a dead man. He let it fall to the floor in a heap.

He glanced around him, pistol still in hand, at the vague disarray of the room. He was going to have to use better encryption on the locks of his room. He'd been lax.

While he showered and dressed, with a dead death trooper in the next room, he had a reasonable amount of time to think about this assassination attempt and how to approach the situation. The bottom line was that he couldn't really trust anyone, and so he presumed the best method to deal with tonight's attempt was to pretend it didn't happen. Perhaps the perpetrator would reveal himself somehow if Kylo Ren seemed unaffected.

One thing was for certain: He was going to have to watch everyone around him very closely.

It still confused him; being called a Jedi. Why? How? Was the man simply insane? Were there baseless rumors? Had he not done enough to make it perfectly clear he'd left that path long ago? It almost made him want to laugh, but that would be a morbid thing, considering everything.

Fully dressed and lightsaber strapped to his side, he considered the dead man on his floor again, in a practical sense.

"Send a sanitation detail to my rooms, please," said Kylo into the comm handle in his wall.

He picked up the helmet and tossed it onto the corpse, then, taking the silenced pistol, he hid it under his pillow. There was a knock at his door.

"Come in," he said.

Two sanitation workers entered and then stopped, looking startled by the dead death trooper on the floor.

"Supreme Commander Ren," said one.

"Take care of this," said Kylo Ren dismissively.

"Y-yes, sir," said the other, and they began to remove the corpse.

Kylo stepped closer to them and they stiffened, as everyone always did when he came close. It was fear of the unknown. Fear of _the force monster._

"You will only remember cleaning my room," said Kylo, force-waving them into submission.

They both blinked, and then glanced at each other and continued what they were doing. They did seem noticeably less frightened by the process, however. Kylo wondered if he had incidentally spared the two sanitation workers some trauma.

With luck, it would be cleaned up and no one would be the wiser. Hopefully, it would be as if no assassination attempt had happened at all.

He left his room for the navigation bridge, wanting to feel the tactical work at play by the officers as they piloted through the galaxy. There was something comforting about it; he tried not to think about why.

"Where are we?" he commanded, as he entered the bridge with its 180-degree clear panel lit by the celestial banners of lightspeed. The officers straightened or stood, in whichever way necessary or possible.

"Supreme Commander Ren," said one, "We are nearly to the Outer Rim."

"Supreme Commander," said General Hux, arriving nearby. "Good morning."

"Good morning," replied Kylo, observing him.

"Is something amiss?" asked Hux, being observed, perhaps to an unusual degree.

"No," said Kylo, continuing to observe him.

"Very good," said Hux, who seemed awkward beneath such scrutiny. "If… you're sure."

"Yes," said Kylo, "I'm sure."

Kylo turned away, back to the passing white ribbons of lightspeed.

 _"Ben," said Rey with something in her voice, something like tears._

He was immediately alert to what could cause this in her, desperate to know, but unable to respond vocally.

 _He saw her. There were indeed tears. It had been a long time since he'd seen those. Not since… he tried not to think about the throne room._

"Excuse me," he said, turning on his heel to leave the bridge.

"Sir?" inquired Hux.

He didn't reply and passed into the hall.

 _"Ben," said Rey, "I need to talk to you."_

 _"I know," he said._

"Pardon, sir?" asked Hux, who Kylo saw had followed him into the hallway.

"It's nothing," said Kylo.

"If you have a moment, sir," said Hux, approaching him.

 _He saw Rey bury her face in her hands, and then wipe away her tears in an effort to pull herself together._

He did not want to give Hux a moment right now.

"I do _not_ ," said Kylo with finality.

Hux glanced over him, a brief thing, and then turned away.

Kylo wanted to throw him across the hall due to his insolence, but he could only think of Rey while he turned into the room with the monolith table and locked the door.

 _"Rey," he said, desperate to know, "What's wrong? What happened?"_

 _"I'm scared," she said, her voice watery and failing as more tears surfaced._

 _"What is it?" he asked urgently._

 _"The Resistance," she said, "my… friends. They're going to find out about this. About you."_

 _Ben only watched her as he let the implications sink into his mind._

 _"How?" he asked. "How will they find out?"_

 _"It's your mother," she said, "she had sensed something in the force for a long time. Finally, she started asking questions."_

 _He swallowed, knowing how cunning his mother could be in defense of her chosen causes._

 _"She started asking about that day… in the throne room," she said, "asking for details, about how I defeated Snoke, you, and his guards singlehandedly, asking Chewie what he knew, and then she started considering my staffsaber and how I made it in a day after months of failing… she wasn't buying it."_

 _He could see her shoulders slump under the weight of her continued deception._

 _"Ben," she said, looking up at him, a tear spilling down her cheek, "I am really terrible at lying."_

 _He almost smiled despite himself, because he knew it was true, and because it endeared her to him._

 _"I hate it," she said, "And I know she knows. I don't think she knows everything, but she knows enough."_

 _"What does she know?" he asked._

 _"She asked me if I've had any communication with you," she said._

 _"How did you respond?" he asked, nerves rising._

 _"I was caught off-guard," she said. "I didn't expect her to come out and ask such a thing. I mean… who would expect our connection? Who has even ever heard of such a thing?"_

 _"My mother has always had a connection with her brother in the force," said Ben, sinking against a wall. "She is very familiar with it."_

 _Rey stared at him._

 _"Please tell me how you responded," he urged._

 _"I, well, I couldn't help it, I floundered a bit," she said, "I just didn't know what to say. And then I said, no, of course not. How could I have? Why would I if I could?"_

 _Ben swallowed._

 _"What did she say to that?" he asked._

 _"She didn't reply at first, she just let me flail about stupidly trying to come up with something," she said, looking frustrated, "but then she said, I see. And then she left. I haven't talked to her alone since. She's been… standoffish. Ben, it's awful."_

 _"Leave, now," he said._

 _"What?" she asked, looking surprised._

 _"I said leave," he said, grim. "Now."_

 _"Ben…" she began._

 _"You have no idea what my mother is capable of," he said. "If she thinks you are a threat to the Resistance, if she thinks you might even just possibly be a traitor, then you aren't safe."_

 _"I can't leave, Ben!" she protested, "I have my trainees, my friends-,"_

 _"Rey, listen to me," he said, more forceful than he meant to be, "I'm not saying that you can never go back, that you'll never see any of them again, but just for right now, you need to go. If not for your own safety, then for my sanity. Get out of there, Rey."_

 _He watched her blink, tears filling her eyes, spilling over and down her cheeks._

 _"Please," he said, feeling echoes of the desperation he felt in the throne room, "If you get out, I'll come find you."_

 _"How can you manage that?" she asked, surprised._

 _"I'm the Supreme Commander of the First Order," he said. "I can do anything I want."_

 _It wasn't true, but he felt like bragging, just then._

 _"But where would I go?" she asked._

 _He considered. The planet with the abandoned Jedi temple came to mind. It was remote, yet near enough._

 _"Aibos," he said. "There's a ruined Jedi temple there. You saw me there some time ago."_

 _"I remember it," she said._

 _"Can you get a ship?" he asked._

 _"Yes," she said, looking sad, "I still have access to the ships. For now. I think."_

 _"I will come as soon as I can," he said._

 _Another tear traced down her cheek, and he watched it._

 _"I know it seems as if everything is terrible right now," he said, "But it isn't, not really."_

 _"How can you say that?" she said, her gaze falling, her voice faltering._

 _"It's just a feeling I have," he said, not knowing how to vocalize it. "Now, go, please… now."_

 _She looked up at him._

 _"Goodbye, Ben," she said, and then the connection faded like a ghost._

He caught his breath, ragged, and gripped the wall for support. Fear arced through him at what Leia Organa, hardened General of the Resistance might do to her, that Rey might not escape in time, that any of a million things might go wrong before she got out of there. Yet, he was also filled with a blinding rush of adrenaline at the prospect of seeing her again, of feeling their force bond up close, of her, her, _her_. It almost took away his ability to think, let alone to do so clearly.

It was several minutes later before Kylo Ren was composed and ready and exiting the room. He went straight to the navigation bridge.

"General Hux," said Kylo Ren.

Hux glanced over the screen he had been behind, observing data of another officer. He straightened.

"Yes, Supreme Commander?" he asked.

"I'm placing you in charge of the fleet for the next few days," he said.

"Sir?" inquired Hux.

"I have a private mission to investigate," said Kylo.

"Of course, sir," said Hux.

"Very well," said Kylo, and he turned to leave.

After he left the bridge, and began to stride down the portal towards his ship, he could feel his hands shaking.

Anticipation and fear.

She could be considered a traitor to the Resistance.

He could easily be considered a traitor to the First Order.

They were only truly honest with each other.

As he walked through the hangar portal, as he passed stormtroopers and officers and droids, as they deferred to him, their Supreme Leader, he wondered if any of them could see through him. He wondered if any of them could see his shaking hands. He wondered if any of them knew he didn't believe in their cause. Not anymore. Maybe he never had. He expected, despite how ludicrous it would be, someone would stop him, that there would be a yell behind him, a call of, "Stop! Traitor!" and the blasts of plasma rifles and pistols would begin, and he would have to fight his way out using all his powers to access his ship and escape the First Order's crushing fist.

To escape… to _her_.

Of course, none of that happened. He reached his ship easily, in fact, the stormtroopers and maintenance workers and officers nearly bent over backwards to bow to him and give him everything he wanted. But they didn't know who he really was.

As he flew out of the hangar and into space, and as he sunburst into the salient rush of lightspeed, and as his hands slowly, slowly, ceased their trembling, he knew who he was.

He was _Ben_ , because that's what she called him.

-_VIII_-


	9. The Jedi Temple

_**A/N: The interchangeability of "Ben" and "Kylo Ren" is fully intentional in this chapter. Thanks for all the wonderful reviews.**_

 _ **The "Jedi facsimile" mentioned in this chapter is the one from TLJ found on Ahch-to. It's a little hard to find an image online, but I found one on Pinterest with the caption: "Here's the close up of the Jedi symbol in the cave on Ahch-to. You can really see the Ying Yang symbolism.". If you would like to search it up and take a better look than what was visible in the movie, I think you'll find it's pretty cool!**_

-_IX_-

The temple was how Ben remembered it, but the weather was warmer, and as a result the greenery, vines, thick-leafed plants, even tropical flowers consumed more of the crumbled stone of the structure. The sky threatened rain, heavy with clouds and the occasional sound of distant thunder.

He walked to the center of the temple's core; the stone architecture that provided a roof still mostly stood. The plants had only breached the edges. In the middle was a paved facsimile, an ancient thing, of what he could only assume was a Jedi holding a lightsaber. Yet, the Jedi was worked in half-black, half-white stone. It wasn't something he'd ever seen before.

Dismissing the facsimile as a curiosity, he took a seat upon it, legs crossed, to meditate, to balance himself before she arrived, even though he felt more balanced around her than he did anywhere else. He still wanted to be ready. There was too much on his mind.

He felt her arrival before he heard or saw her. The force became more active when she was near. Opening his eyes, he saw her standing in one of the archways into the temple. She looked small in the archway, dressed in pale, functional clothes, with her lightsaber strapped to her back. He felt something of a smile tug at his lips.

A moment passed wherein they simply looked at each other.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Meditating," he replied.

"You do that?" she asked, seeming surprised.

"Why wouldn't I?" he said.

"It just doesn't … seem like something you would do," she said.

"Of course it is something I would do," he said, more shortly than he intended. "It's useful."

She observed him for a moment, and then seemed to see the reason in his explanation. Walking into the center of the temple, she looked at the facsimile.

"I've seen that before," she said.

"You have?" he asked, glancing down at the black and white stones beneath him. "Where? What is it?"

"This was in the temple on Ahch-to," she said, pointing at it. "It looked just like it."

"The Ahch-to temple was built by the first Jedi," said Ben.

"I know," she said.

"What do you think it means?" he asked.

Rey moved over and sat near him on the light side of the facsimile, facing him on the dark, mirroring his pose, and he felt all at once disoriented by her proximity and the force between them. He'd almost forgot the question he'd asked or even about the facsimile upon which they sat.

"I don't know," she said, "How should I know? You're the one who went to Jedi school,"

"It's not called 'Jedi school'," he said, affronted.

She gave him something of a sideways smile, as if she were teasing him, or something like it. He wasn't familiar at all with those sorts of interactions and felt lost.

Glancing down over the stones, and then at the crumbling temple around them she said, "I like it here, it's peaceful."

Then she began to look sad.

 _Ah, the rebellion._

"Rey," he said.

"What am I going to do, Ben?" she asked him.

"I don't know," he said.

She sighed.

"But," he said, and her eyes came back up to meet his, "I feel like a solution will present itself."

"How?" she asked. "With the force?"

"Maybe," he said, not sure at all.

"I'll need to figure something out quickly," she said. "They'll notice I'm gone soon."

He glanced aside towards the direction in which his giant raven of a ship sat, silent.

"I don't have much time, either," he said.

"Why do you stay there?" she asked. "With the First Order?"

"Where else would it make sense for me to go?" he asked.

She left unsaid what he knew she was thinking.

"Impossible," he said, glancing away.

"It's not impossible," she said quickly.

"Yes, it is," he said to her, firm. "Think for a moment how much death and destruction I've caused the Resistance. Just _think_ about it."

He watched tears begin to fill her eyes and didn't know if they came from thinking about all the horrible things he'd done, or due to the impossibility of the situation, or both.

"And what would happen to the First Order if I disappeared?" he said. "What would happen to the Resistance without my interference in the First Order's intelligence about the Resistance?"

"You can't stay there, Ben," she said, her tension rising. "They'll find you out and they'll kill you."

He couldn't stop the flinch that came automatically when she said that, considering the assassination attempt that morning, in his room. She stared at him.

"What?" she asked.

"What?" he asked, feigning ignorance.

"What?" she demanded, leaning in, refusing nothing for an answer.

He gave her a look.

A familiar determination crossed her face; she flung her hand out and used the force on him, she actually _used the force on him_ , so she could discern what he was hiding in his mind. He fought back, holding onto his memories and pushing against her mind, against her _attack._ They hung in stalemate until he threw out his hand with the force to send her physically flying backward, out of the facsimile and onto the main temple floor. His throw broke her concentration; she hadn't expected it, and he maintained his memories as his own, but was shaken by her use of the force on him. He stood the moment he could manage it.

"What was that, Rey?" he asked, demanded, furious.

She was still on her back, perhaps the breath knocked from her by the throw.

"You weren't going to tell me," she said, clambering to her feet, "so I had to find out, somehow!"

"By forcing it from me?" he asked in disbelief.

"As if you've never tried to do the same to me!" she said, her face challenging him to deny it.

"You were my enemy!" he said. "You had information I needed!"

"Well, you have information I need!" she said.

"Am I your enemy?" he asked.

That gave her pause, and there was a moment wherein the haze of agitation between them thinned.

"How could you be?" she asked, her voice gone soft, though she seemed hesitant to meet his gaze. "You're… the only person who seems to understand what I am."

Her words endeared her to him.

"Instead of rashly rushing in to take what you want," he said, "why don't you try persuasion?"

"Like suggesting you tell me what I want to know," she said, "and waving my hand like this?"

"No," he said, almost wanting to laugh. "Talking. Without the force."

"Oh," she said, as if that option hadn't occurred to her.

"You do know what you were just doing would be considered using the dark side of the force, don't you?" he asked her.

"What?" she said, looking surprised, and maybe a little horrified. "No, I didn't know that."

"Taking what you want against someone's will is the very definition of the dark side of the force," said Kylo Ren.

"But it was for your own good," she objected. "You wouldn't tell me what happened to you, and-," she pointed at him, "I know something did happen."

"If something happened, how is you knowing about it going to help me?" he asked.

"I can't know that until you tell me!" she said.

She was so persistent, he could barely stand it.

"Ben," she said, more gently, stepping closer, "I want to know because I'm concerned about you. I don't want anything bad to happen to you."

"Why not?" he asked, feeling cold.

"Because," she began, then seemed at a loss for words.

"Find it," he commanded, willing her to find the words. To tell him. He wanted it. He wanted it _so badly._

"I don't want to lose this," she said, gesturing between them, "Do you?"

"No," he said at once, his voice coming out less solid than he would have liked.

She stood there, gazing up at him silently, withholding from inquiring further, but somehow more persuasive than anything else she had done. He felt his stubbornness cracking at the seams.

"I don't want you to worry," he finally let out. "I know you will, you'll blow it all out of proportion, and you have enough to worry about with the Resistance."

"What happened?" she asked, her eyes moving across his face in the same way… that day. In the elevator. He didn't know if he could trust her like this. Was she manipulating him? Did she know the effect she had on him?

She reached out and touched his gloved wrist, and he bit back a flinch.

"Ben," she said, all gentleness. "Please, tell me."

He felt cornered. He felt as if there was no escape. He had to get out.

Pulling his wrist away from her fingers in a sharp movement, he stepped away from her.

"No," he said.

She had the gall to look furious and something clicked in his mind.

"Hah!" he said, pointing at her. "I knew you were manipulating me!"

"I was not!" she objected. "I was _persuading_ you!"

"They're the same thing," he replied.

"But that's exactly what you told me to do!" she said, throwing her hands up. "You're a terrible teacher."

"I never promised to teach you the art of _persuasion_ ," he said, "and besides… you're very good already."

"Really?" she asked, momentarily forgetting to be irritated.

"Yes," he said, brushing off his sleeve, "but it's disturbing."

"Oh," she said, disappointed.

"Would you like me to teach you Jedi meditation techniques?" he asked her, completely changing tack.

"Yes," she said, appearing interested. "I would like that."

"I will," he said, "if you promise not to force-attack my mind again."

"Oh," she said, slight embarrassment crossing her features. He found it adorable, but refused to let it show. "I'm sorry about that, I won't do it again."

"Good," he said, but then she pointed at him suddenly, and he leaned back impulsively.

"As long as _you_ don't force-attack my mind again, either," she said, giving him a stare-down.

Holding up his hands in truce, he said: "You have my word."

Then she smiled, and he felt warmth fill him.

-_O_-

"How much did my uncle manage to teach you on Ahch-to?" he asked her.

They were sitting cross-legged facing each other on the ancient Jedi facsimile, again. The day had begun to wane, and orange rays of late afternoon began to filter through the rich greenery that grew nearly everywhere outside of the temple's center. It only reminded Kylo Ren that his brief time with her was passing too quickly.

"Not much," she said. "I've told you a lot of it already. We managed to barely touch on the biggest concepts."

Kylo looked at her.

"He explained the force to me," she said.

"What did he say?" he asked.

"He said it was in the balance of things," she said.

"Interesting," he remarked.

"Is that not what he told you?" she asked.

"Well," said Ben, "you know that the Jedi order isn't really based on balance."

"Then how do they use the force so well?" she asked.

"How do Sith use the force so well?" he asked in reply. "They're not balanced, either."

Rey watched him, seeming to wait for more answers. He loved how curious and anxious she was to learn. He'd missed it.

"Perhaps that's why the only people who can use the force act as Jedi or Sith. The ones who are extremely strong in the force are those who can overcome the imposed philosophy imbalances to wield it," he said.

"Have you been both?" she asked him suddenly, surprising him. "Jedi and Sith?"

"I don't know," he said, honestly. "I've never been able to understand what I am."

"I feel the same way!" she said, excited.

"Yes, well," he said, a little taken aback by her intense enthusiasm, "now we are not alone."

The smile she gave him was warm, radiant, disconcerting.

"Now, close your eyes and feel the force," he said, closing his own.

He allowed himself to become immediately aware of the force around them, of the push and pull between himself and Rey, and the glorious colors that erupted when their forces combined. It was incomprehensible, but, once riveted, he did not want to take his mind's eye away.

"Can you feel it?" he asked.

"I feel it," she said, softly, and the force around her pulsed as she spoke, as if both her words and her force said it, meant it, felt it. The force around her was so warm and generous he found himself greedy for more of it, and he had the sudden desire to look at her.

Opening his eyes, her found her gaze already upon him.

She held up her hand, palm out, for him to meet her on the center line of the facsimile.

"But wait," he said, yet his voice came out gentler than normal, "I haven't even begun to teach you how to balance the force inside you."

"This feels like balance already," she replied.

He was at a loss for words, because it did, and because she knew it, too.

"Rey," he said, "I won't always be with you."

She looked as if she wanted to protest that topic, but he went on.

"When we are apart, you'll need this," he said. "You'll need these skills. They'll help you."

She gazed at him, then sighed and dropped her hand.

"Fine," she said, closing her eyes again.

He wanted to smile at her. She was so rash at times, but also so enthusiastic about learning and knowing new things. Her peculiarities threatened to prick him, but he maintained his focus and returned to his meditative state.

"Feel the force," he said, "and feel both dark and light in you. Understand that neither can exist without the other."

He heard her sigh out a breath, and he knew what she was feeling.

"I almost always converse with the force while I meditate," he said.

"How does one converse with the force?" he heard her voice ask, perhaps confused.

"Poorly, to be frank," he said, "It never answers as clearly as you or me. But the process allows me to come to terms with it for another day."

"Your relationship with the force sounds downright antagonistic," she said with a sprinkling of humor.

"Perhaps it is," he said, though the idea gave him a certain deep sadness. "I have had my entire life torn apart by the force. Or, perhaps better said, by those who wanted to take advantage of my strength with it."

"That's not the force's fault," said Rey. "That's the fault of _people_."

He paused to consider.

"That's true," he admitted.

He opened his eyes to see she was looking at him, again.

"How am I supposed to teach you if you keep looking at me instead of meditating?" he asked, and she had the gall to look sheepish. "We don't have much time."

Her countenance turned sad.

"I don't like that," she said.

"You don't like what?" he asked.

"That our time is so limited," she said. "That we must be secretive, that no one can know. I don't like it at all."

"You know it's necessary," he said.

"But if they knew you like I know you-," she began, but he had to cut her off.

"They know me enough," he said sharply, feeling a twinge of familiar anger.

"Ben," she said, perhaps condescendingly, "I tried to kill you."

"Several times," he added.

"And now look!" she said, spreading her hands. "We are peacefully meditating together."

"I'm trying to teach you how to meditate and you keep interrupting, you meant to say," he replied.

"But the point is," she said, holding up a finger, "We _could_ be peacefully meditating together and wouldn't be attempting to kill each other."

"That's true," he conceded. "Is that the point, though?"

"I'm saying it is," she replied, and he bit back a smile.

"I can't possibly invest the time in each one of your associates to allow them to get to know me," he said. "You know that. Besides, I would _hate_ that."

She laughed a little at that.

"It would be _terrible,_ and you know it," he said.

"The idea is definitely amusing," she said.

"But be reasonable, Rey," he said, shaking his head, "You know it just isn't possible. There'll be assassins after me wherever I go."

She seemed to pick up on that and he winced before he could stop himself.

"Wait, are you-," began Rey.

"No," he said, cutting her off.

"Have you had assassins after you?"

"No," he said again, cursing himself.

Her eyes widened.

"You have!" she cried.

"Just one," he said, and then for emphasis: "Just one!"

"One is enough to kill you, Ben!" she said.

"He didn't manage," said Ben.

"When did this happen?" she asked.

"This morning," he said.

"Ben!" she chided, as if he'd done something wrong.

"What?" he inquired wearily.

"How can you act so normal after such a thing?" she asked.

"I suppose it wasn't surprising," he replied. "Although, there was something strange about it."

"Tell me," she said.

"He called me a 'Jedi', and seemed to loathe me for it," said Ben. "It seemed to be his personal motive behind the attempt."

"Called _you_ a Jedi?" asked Rey, making a funny face. "How weird!"

"I would have to agree," he replied.

"Why would he think you're a Jedi?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "I would think burning down the Jedi temple would be enough proof that I am not."

Rey cringed at that. It seemed to bother her. He didn't care much. She wasn't there. She didn't know what it was like.

"Sorry," said Kylo Ren with a one-shouldered shrug, a wan offering.

"Well, there's nothing to be done about it, now, I suppose," said Rey.

"About which? The assassination attempt or the burning down of the Jedi temple?" he asked.

 _"Ben!"_ she chided.

"You do know why I did it, don't you?" he asked, feeling very calm. Almost rebellious.

She stared at him, hard, for a long moment. Finally, she blinked and glanced away and admitted from between her teeth, "Yes."

He found that concession very interesting.

"Not that I think it was right," she quickly added.

"Of course you don't," he said, glancing away in exasperation.

They spent the next several moments in weighted silence. He refused to resume talking first. She'd opened up a particular can of worms that he didn't like at all.

He could feel her glancing at him, looking him over, and he waited for her to speak. Suddenly she stood, and he was engulfed by the fear that she would leave.

"Rey," he said, looking up at her.

"What?" she replied.

He glanced down at the white half of the Jedi facsimile, realizing his fear of losing time with her was greater than his pride.

"Please," he said, "have a seat."

She mulled in place for a moment, and then he watched her sit, cross-legged, upon the white stones. He couldn't have expected how pleased he was to see her return to her place.

 _Her rightful place as my equal._

"Ben," she said, her voice soft, gentle, endeared.

He blinked.

"Did you just…," he began, not knowing how to finish.

"I felt it, what you thought, through the force between us," she said.

He felt embarrassed and warmth pushed at his collar. She seemed to find this amusing, which made it worse.

"Don't blush-," she started.

"I'm not blushing," he objected.

"I'm flattered," she said gracefully, and then held out her hand to him, palm out. "Now… because I can, because light-years aren't separating us, because I have you right here beside me for this moment, I want to touch you."

He glanced at her hand, at its pale, feminine radiance, and was reminded of his secret worship of its form, touch, and balance. Recalling the double-helix starburst of touching her, he felt his fingers tremble as he began to move his hand towards hers.

"Take off your gloves!" she insisted.

He couldn't take them off fast enough.

-_IX_-


	10. Deluge

_**A/N: There were a few questions in reviews that hopefully are answered in this chapter. Sorry for the wait; Winter break was over and life went back to crazytown! I'm adapting.**_

 _ **Sooooooo... enjoy! Thank you so much for all the reviews and favs and follows.**_

-_X_-

Later that night, after they had parted ways to their separate ships to get some sleep, Ben found himself restlessly tossing and turning on the ship's cot on which he was attempting to sleep. Sure, it had been a long, distressing day for both of them. He'd thwarted an assassination attempt from someone in the First Order and she'd suffered from the suspicions of the Resistance. It'd been emotionally draining for them both, to be sure.

He should have been tired. He supposed he was. But he couldn't sleep.

The residual feeling of when their hands touched continued to shoot through him, a rapid-fire adrenaline shot that left him shivering if he let himself think too long.

Again and again he tried to relax, he even tried to meditate, but again and again he was brought back to her, her hand, and her touch… and the force.

This time they had been together in person, and it magnified them both.

He stared up at the black cross-hatched ceiling of his bunk, then rolled onto his side, perhaps with more force than was necessary, and tried to sleep again.

His mind wandered to the way her eyes closed the instant they touched, to her sudden intake of breath, to the way he fought the instinct to do the same, if only so he could watch her. The force _roiled_ around them. Their combined power was magnificent.

Kylo Ren opened his eyes and realized he was trembling, again. He stilled his breath. Then he closed his eyes, willing himself to do this, to sleep.

The softness of her hand. The shiver he felt from her as he laced his fingers in between hers.

With a grunt, he threw his pillow across the room, and then he sat up, defeated.

"There is no sleep," he muttered, "not with her nearby."

For a few minutes he paced his ship, until he decided to go find hers; to see what it was like, to see if she was sleeping. He told himself he wasn't stalking her, he was just restless, that's all.

Throwing a cowl over his shoulders, he wrapped the hood over his head and left his ship for the dark, tropical night.

Tree frogs and night birds beat an insistent, droning cacophony and the air smelled warm like water. He knew the general direction of where her ship was, but not precisely where to find it, so he took the path to the Jedi temple and stood in the center to orient himself. Drawing a breath, he listened, letting the force move through him to navigate to her.

 _That way._

Treading into the forest, he heard the percussive sound of raindrops, scattered and rare for now, on the leaves above. Pressing his cowl further around his face, he hoped it wouldn't become a deluge. He didn't really like the idea of getting wet.

Suddenly, from the side, he heard the pressing of leaves, the pushing sound of branches being shoved, and the quick rush of something from the forest, towards him, and he grabbed the hilt of his lightsaber and, igniting it, bright white, he swirled to face whatever it was.

It was Rey, paused just before the act of thwacking him with her staff.

Their mutually stiffened bodies relaxed simultaneously.

"Ben?" she asked. "What are you doing out here?"

"I was looking for your ship," he replied.

"Why?" she asked.

"I couldn't sleep," he said.

She was lit with the white brightness of his lightsaber as she observed him.

"Neither could I," she said, with a half-smile.

"What were you doing?" he inquired, cutting off his lightsaber and sheathing the hilt in his belt. They were plunged back into darkness.

"Wandering, mostly," she said. "I didn't want to bother you, I assumed you needed the sleep."

"Whether I do or not, it isn't meant to be," he replied wryly.

"I didn't recognize you with that cowl around your face," she said. "I could have hurt you!"

"Wouldn't be the first time," he said.

He'd meant it to be a sort of joke, but she glanced over his scar and looked sorry.

"Tch," he said, "It's nothing."

The raindrops beat a hasty pattern on the leaves above, occasionally penetrating the treetops and landing around them. Rey looked up.

"Want to see my ship?" she asked.

"I suppose," he said, noncommittally.

"Come on," she said, pulling him by the sleeve.

They began on the path, through the trees, moving quicker and quicker as the rain got harder and harder, until finally they were running through the forest.

Her ship emerged from the greenery, and he was relieved to see it wasn't the Millennium Falcon. It looked to be a small Resistance transport. She grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him up the ramp to enter it.

"How did you get this ship?" he asked.

"I borrowed it," she said, shivering a little due to the wetness from rain.

He glanced at her bare shoulders.

"Have you eaten?" she asked.

Realizing he hadn't, he said, "No."

"Good then, neither have I," she replied, immediately moving further into the ship. She disappeared around a corner, and then, after a moment, popped around it again to say: "Come on, then."

It was strange, her familiarity, her cheerfulness. He didn't understand it. He found it so hard to trust it.

But he followed her.

The mess area was miniscule, like all small ships, minimalist, with something like a camp burner for a stove, a very small sink, and a cupboard for a larder and to hold cooking utensils. There was a minute table with benches on either side, both only big enough for one person to sit. Rey had already gotten to work pulling out ingredients for something, though he couldn't fathom what it would be. It had been years since he'd had the necessity to cook for himself.

He noticed she'd begun to dry, and he noticed how the delicate, curling, wet tendrils of hair began to release their hold against the back of her neck as they dried. She turned suddenly, causing him to start.

"You can sit down if you like," she said, congenially.

"Do you need help?" he asked, trying to think of what would be the most polite, non-offensive thing to say or do.

"You would only get in the way in this tiny kitchen," she said. "Besides, you can help the most by sitting there and brainstorming with me on how to fix our problem."

 _Our problem?_

She was putting something green and leafy into a frying pan, and didn't seem to hear his thought, which he found somewhat relieving. He liked to have his own thoughts, most of the time. He sat down and watched her for a moment.

"I think the first thing we need to do is adequately define what our problem is," he said.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, as if she found that amusing.

"Well," she said, turning back to chop something, "it's multi-faceted. You have your problems with the First Order, I mean, I don't think you should stay there-,"

"I know," he said.

"And I have my problems with the Resistance, since I have this… um, this _thing_ with you that… well. I don't think either of us are willing to give it up."

"Why should we?" he asked.

"Well put," she replied.

Her response made him like her more.

"I'm going to have to go back to the Resistance," she said. "Tomorrow, I guess. But I don't know how to manage it. General Organa knows something is going on. I mean, she has the force, doesn't she? What if she _knows_ , if she perceives it?"

"It's possible," he replied, "but I don't want you to go back there."

"I must," she said.

"I will have to go back to the First Order tomorrow, as well," he said.

"I don't think you should go back," she said.

"I have to," he replied. "Just like you have to go back to the Resistance. It's where we belong."

"Yet, neither of us do belong," she said.

"No," he said, "we don't."

They were silent in their separate mores for some time while she cooked. Finally, the meal was prepared and set on the table. She sat across from him. He was grateful, yet felt awkward.

"Thank you," he said.

She smiled at him.

"It's nothing," she said.

But it wasn't nothing. It was something to which he wasn't accustomed, which he hadn't experienced in so long that he couldn't even remember it, only bare hues of memory that this was a thing that had happened once. Before his mother sent him away as a child to live and fend for himself in the world as a Jedi. His mother who found the Resistance more important than anything or anyone else… even her own child.

Could Rey understand this? Could she know how monumental it was for her to cook for him, to sit with him, and to eat with him? He didn't know.

"I promise it's not that bad," she said with a grin, as she began to eat.

There was something about this that pricked him in his subconscious. The intimacy of the situation, of eating together, but most of all the feeling of being _cared for_ , it hit him like a wave all at once and he felt his eyes stinging.

He stood abruptly.

Rey's eyes followed him, looking surprised.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's nothing," he said, turning away, feeling like he had to get away before vulnerability struck. As he strode through the pale, haphazard interior of the Resistance ship toward the exit ramp, he didn't know why tears stung his eyes, but he didn't want her to see it.

It seemed as if it took too long to breach the ramp, but he finally did. The weather had turned into a deluge, but now he felt as if that were all the better. He didn't get more than two steps down the ramp, however, before his sleeve was caught from behind.

 _Not now._

"You can't go out there," she said, "it's pouring!"

"Yes, I can," he replied, pulling on his sleeve.

"No, you can't!" she rejoined, equally stubborn.

She was such a strange girl.

"Let go," he said, pulling again.

She got that look on her face, the one he knew.

"No," she said. "You'll die out there."

He almost wanted to laugh.

"Die?" he asked. "From rain?"

"Yes," she said, looking frightened.

"You do know that rain can't kill you, right?" he asked.

She blinked.

"But if there's too much of it," she asked, "won't you drown?"

She'd succeeded, even though she didn't know what she was doing. Her rain ignorance was so distracting and humorous he'd completely forgotten to burst into tears over his unconscious demons. He shook his head at her.

"No," he said.

"Oh," she said. "But still, you can't go. How rude to leave after I've made you something to eat!"

"I'm sorry," he said, deferring. "Let's go eat."

"And maybe while we're eating you can explain to me the intricacies of rain," she said as they turned together towards the kitchen. "All I know is what I experienced on Ahch-To, and that wasn't very much."

"I remember," he said, feeling a passing rush of gratitude for their force bond. "You weren't scared of it, then?"

"I knew I could run into a nearby hut if it got too strong," she said.

He found her childlike curiosity about rain adorable.

They sat together and ate like normal people. _Like normal people._ Ben had never been a normal person. For him, it was a singular experience. He taught her what he knew about rain, which wasn't really that much, considering rain isn't very complicated, but she was interested in everything. Then she told him about the Resistance, and several (admittedly humorous) stories of things that happened there.

Her cooking wasn't what he was used to; it was foreign, but he liked it.

At the end, she began with, "I've been wondering…"

"Yes?" he inquired.

"What did the First Order think of your white lightsaber?" she asked.

"They haven't seen it," he replied. "I haven't used it once."

"Haven't you?" she asked.

"No," he said. "I've been using other means, when necessary."

She gazed at him.

"What kind of means," she asked, probing, "And for what purpose?"

He returned her gaze.

"Are you asking if I've used violence on others?" he asked.

"Maybe," she said.

"Well, we are unifying the galaxy," he said, "and not everyone is compliant."

He could feel her tension rather than see it.

"How much violence are you willing to use on others for your cause?" he asked.

"That's different," she said.

"How?" he asked.

"My cause is…," she began.

"Better?" he asked. "Is that what you think?"

"Of course that's what I think, or else I wouldn't be behind it," she said, her brow lowering.

"Who are you to judge which cause is better?" he asked. "Do you know everything?"

"No," she said, "but that doesn't mean I can't tell wh-,"

"Both causes use violence to get what they want, Rey," he said, leaning forward in his chair, "so does it really matter which side you're on?"

"That's a stupid way to think of things," she said, clearly irritated.

"I wanted to have neither, but you wouldn't have it," he said, old grievances rising within him, "You had to go to your Resistance, where you're assured a nice, big war to fight in with your 'friends'."

She looked outraged.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, accusatory. "You're doing exactly the same!"

"It didn't have to be this way," he said, falling back into his chair and folding his arms. "And now look at us. Stuck on either side. Forced to sneak away just to talk for a moment. Suspected by our chosen sides, and despised by the other."

He watched the intensity build in her face, until it was her turn to lean forward on her chair.

"I couldn't sit there and watch the Resistance die in those transports!" she seethed, pointing at him. Tears began to form in her eyes, but her anger was strong. "You wouldn't do anything about it! I had to save them!"

"Do you know how many more people will die, now, because you saved them?" he asked, a calm juxtaposition to her anger. "You didn't save the Resistance, Rey, you preserved the war. You saved the war to build itself and be fought another day, with countless more deaths to come. We could have stopped the cycle, you and I, but you couldn't see it. You refused to see it."

"Your own mother was on those transports!" she rejoined.

Rage erupted in him like the lashing of a dragon.

"Do not talk to me of my mother!" he cried, smacking the table, causing everything on it to rattle.

Rey's flinch and surprise forced him to draw it back, to smooth it over, to try desperately to control it.

"Your parents abandoned you," he said, plastering a veneer over his rage that he hoped would hold, "and mine abandoned me. We have that in common. Just because my mother is still alive doesn't mean she means anything to me."

Rey shook her head and said, "Don't say that, Ben."

"She chose the Resistance over her own child," he said, and his voice shook involuntarily, "do you think when push comes to shove that she won't do the same to you?"

She sat quietly and gazed at him for a long moment.

"Perhaps," she admitted.

Despite her admittance, he felt hurt and uncomfortable with the conversation's turn, and he wondered if the deluge had ended yet.

"Ben," said Rey, lying her arm across the table, unfurling her hand like a blooming lily. For him.

Lifting his hand, he touched hers, just the palm with his two fingers, feeling the softness, tracing the lines, remembering the force between them, and allowing it to wash across him in waves. She left her hand prone on the table; his to explore and have as he wished, and he did. From moment to moment he had the desire to lift her hand to his lips, but he didn't dare.

After some time, she drew a breath and as she let it out, he noticed her breath shook, causing him to look up at her. There was a soft smile on her face. Something washed across him akin to worship.

"Will you help me clean up?" she asked him, her lithe fingers drawing to a gentle clasp around his.

"Yes," he replied, his voice weak, and willing to do anything for her in that moment.

-_X_-


	11. Solar Radiation

_**A/N: Due to busy life stuff, it's safe to assume I'll update once a week. It will probably be faster than that, but I'm saying a week just so you're not too disappointed! Thank you for reading, reviewing, favorites and follows. This chapter I especially had to give extra attention and care.**_

-_XI_-

Cleanup came and went, and with the continuation of the rain, Ben found himself on the floor of Rey's ship lying on blankets and pillows, she and him upside down from each other, like mirrored opposites, but his eyes level with hers though a few feet away. They'd talked and talked and hardly argued, and he found himself wishing he could stay. It must have been very late, because he was feeling the tug of fatigue on his edges, and he saw it in her eyes. Their voices had grown soft and philosophical, loose and poignant.

"So, Ben," she said, "if you could train, _not Jedi_ , but force users… what would you do?"

"Hmm," he said, turning his gaze up to the ceiling to think, "Firstly, I'd throw out the rule of not having emotional attachment to anything."

"That's your first change?" she asked with a laugh.

"It's ridiculous!" he protested.

"You're right," she said, "it is pretty ridiculous."

"And then," he said, "I wouldn't demand anyone leave their parents as children. That's awful, too."

"I guess it goes with the emotional detachment thing," she said. "But I have to agree with you."

"It's not natural," he said.

Rey drew a breath, and then sighed.

"And… let's see," he said, enjoying this particular conversation. He liked the idea of changing how things were done before. It made him feel not so powerless. "Anger would be acceptable. So would fear. It would all be fine."

"All emotions?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "The Jedi are always told to bottle up and clamp down all emotions, as if that's going to make them go away. It doesn't. It just makes them worse."

She smiled at him.

"I suppose you know from personal experience," she said, laying out her hand at head level for him to touch. He rolled over on his stomach, his head sideways on his pillow, to reach his hand up to hers, to partake of the balanced force bounty that had been so free to him this past day. To touch her was glorious, but he'd already grown accustomed to it.

"I do," he said. "Denying the Jedi emotions and parents and families can only serve to turn them into emotionally stunted people."

He traced figures on her hand, lazily, for a moment.

"But Rey…," he began.

"Hm?" she asked, a soft thing.

"I wonder if that's how it was meant to be," he said, "from the beginning."

He looked at her.

"I keep thinking about that facsimile in the Jedi temple," he said. "The first one."

"Do you?" she asked, brushing the pads of her fingertips across his.

"Yes," he said, "I think it means something."

"What do you think it means?" she asked.

"It's intangible," he said, "I don't feel like I can put it into words."

She smiled softly at him. He turned his gaze to her hand and pressed his fingers between hers, focused on the interlocking of fine, delicate and feminine with rough, hardened masculine. It balanced beautifully and perhaps it was his fatigue-addled mind, but he wondered at it.

"Your hands are beautiful," he said at last, his voice coming out softer than he thought it would.

"So are yours," he heard her say, and he looked at her, not sure why she would say such a thing. He couldn't see it.

"They are," she said, gently insistent.

He sighed and fell deeper into his pillow, allowing her the right to say it if she wanted.

"Are you tired?" he asked after a moment.

"Are you?" she asked.

He gazed at her.

"Let's use the force," he said.

"Okay," she replied.

He kept his gaze on her and then, like one might plunge from a height into the roiling deep, he let himself fall into it, into the force between them. It flowed like an interlocking stream of energy in a million colors, delighted with their temporary union, golden, warm, transcendent. He felt her presence beyond seeing or touching her, he felt who she was, _what_ she was, and the essence of her, and he felt her doing the same to him. He didn't feel as if there were anything he didn't want her to know about him, he was open, and he gave himself to her. He felt completed, but better yet, he didn't feel alone.

"Ben," she sighed.

He came back to the physical and saw a tear fall down her cheek.

"What is it?" he asked gently.

She drew a shaky breath and sighed it out, short, and then she threw it on him with the force, everything she was feeling; gratitude for him, the relief of not being alone, the joy of their force union, and greater, more intangible feelings, a glowing warmth which settled on him and sunk into his soul.

He moved quickly, without a second thought, and brought her hand to his lips.

A sharp intake of breath came from her, yet, his worship could not be denied, not now. He kissed the delicate pads of her fingertips, the faintly creased bends of her fingers, the sloping crook between her thumb and forefinger, the dense softness of her palm. At last, with her hand cupping his face, his lips half-submerged in her palm, her thumb caressing his face, he sighed her name and closed his eyes.

"I don't want to leave you," he whispered.

"I don't want to leave you," she whispered back.

He drew a shaky breath and let it out, allowing his lips to glide lazily across her skin. Then he pulled her hand from his face and placed it gently, carefully, back on the blanket, as if it were made of priceless porcelain.

Her face was flushed, and he took a moment to take it in with his gaze. Then he gave her a soft smile, absorbed in gratitude for her existence.

He shifted down, falling into his pillow, allowing the sweet sorrow of their impending separation to wash across him.

"I think we should try to sleep, now," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, and it came out tender. "We both have a lot to do tomorrow."

She smiled at him, though tears built at her edges.

"You're right," she said, her voice uneven.

He sighed at her, and then turned away, his back to her.

He might have laid awake for some time, but the comfort of her proximity lulled him to sleep at last.

-_O_-

The next morning he woke first, curled tightly like a fist. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her, sprawled carelessly, motionless except the peaceful rise and fall of her chest, perfect like a painted fresco. He took his time memorizing the incomprehensible curve of her neck.

After a while, he stood with the aim of returning to his ship for a shower. He was meticulous about cleanliness. He wondered if she was. Observing her madly chaotic sleeping arrangement, he decided probably not.

At the first creak of the ship's grated floor under his boots, however, she started awake. Sitting up suddenly with a gasp, she looked at him with all the practice of a person who had lived alone and relied on one's own instincts to stay alive for many years. He stayed still.

Recognizing him as the dark unconsciousness of her sleep cleared, she exhaled and smiled a little.

"Ben," she said, gentle, and by way of greeting.

"Good morning," he replied.

"Are you leaving?" she asked, worry crossing her face.

"Yes," he said.

"But we haven't said goodbye!" she said.

He couldn't help but smile a little.

"Oh, no," he said, "not like that. I'm going to get cleaned up on my ship."

"Oh," she said, relaxing. Then she glanced around as if lost. "I guess I should, too."

"Afterwards, meet me at the temple," he said. "Then, I suppose we will have to say goodbye."

She sighed.

"I suppose so," she said.

"But not for long," he said.

As he left her ship, he noticed the rain and clouds had gone and the sun shone brightly, filtering with effervescence through the leafy treetops above, smattering across the ground like the refraction of sunlight underwater. The air smelled wet and loamy, fresh with wildflowers. It was a beautiful day on this planet which he had only visited twice. Maybe he would have to come back, sometime. He'd grown fond of its tropical primitiveness, and of the temple and its ancient facsimile, and the hope it brought him.

His ship sat silent, dark, waiting, and as it came into view, it reminded him of everything he was not. Yet, he would have to continue to pretend. For now.

After showering, he sat at his console and read the most recent reports. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It seemed as if the First Order had proceeded perfectly normally under General Hux's care.

Ben heaved a sigh.

He could disappear.

The First Order would go on. It would be fine, yet… it would be a greater threat to Rey's Resistance without his intervention.

No, he had to stay with the First Order, if only to continue to thwart its pursuit of the rebels. It was all he could do. It was the best he could do.

Hoping he hadn't taken too long, he strode through the forest into the vestibule of the temple and paused within an outer arch. She was there, standing on her side of the Jedi facsimile, waiting, a ray of light falling across her from a skylight in the roof. He observed how the light, striking her on one side, pulled out the deepening shadow on her other half. It transfixed him.

He was caught, however, when she saw him and then smiled.

She began to take a step, but he held out a hand to stop her.

"Wait," he said, moving towards her, and she did with a curious look on her face.

He moved closer until he was standing in his place, on the other side of the facsimile, facing her.

"There," he said, satisfied.

She looked amused.

"You're something of a perfectionist, aren't you?" she asked him.

"I don't know," he said. "I like things a certain way."

He held out his hand to her. She glanced at it.

"Take your glove off," she said.

"Oh," he said, quick to correct the glove problem, "Sorry."

She smiled in response and put her hand in his.

He found himself falling into a gaze upon her. Each moment was filled with such a juxtaposition of pleasure and pain he didn't know how to take it all in and make sense of it.

"Now," she said, "what am I going to do about the Rebellion?"

He drew a long breath, considering.

"You're going to go back," he said, "and…"

He paused, trying to discern it through the force, what might be, or what might work, or the how and why of things. She watched him do it, or, _felt_ him do it, and wondered.

"You'll just be who you are," he said, almost surprised by his answer. "That's what you need to do."

That seemed an odd plan, but its what he felt. She laughed a little.

"Really?" she asked. "That's all?"

He felt helpless to explain, because he didn't know how it would work.

"Do you think that's right?" he asked.

"I do, actually," she said. "I felt it."

Relief melted into him as he realized she was going to be fine.

"And you?" she asked.

"I'll do the same things I always do," he said.

She watched him.

"Also," he added, "I'm going to get my door encryption improved."

She let out a soft laugh and looked down.

"Ugh, Ben, I don't want to send you back there."

"You're not sending me anywhere. I'm going."

"You don't have to go."

"I'm going in order to protect you."

Her breath caught, a soft, light sound, but he heard it. She took his other hand, despite its glove. What he saw in her face was subtly different than anything he'd ever seen before.

She took a step closer to him and suddenly he knew; he could feel it in the force between them. She was going to kiss him. It was like the magnetic buildup before a solar storm, the charging and tilt of particles strained on the cusp of a chain reaction, hanging, longing, suspended just before the auroric crash and tumble and destruction. Organization before the chaos. He felt it all through him, charging and igniting his particles, raging though him like a scouring astral wind, and surrounding him, and the pressure built, atmosphere by atmosphere until he was overcome, bent by the inescapable mass of her gravity, and he became hers to kiss.

His will surrendered to her, his shoulders stooped to her claiming arm, his mouth pliant to her unfathomable softness. Her kiss was the brief bloom of a desert flower, delicate, poignant, cautious.

At its end, her crooked arm maintained its claim on his shoulders as they faced each other, scarcely a hair's breadth apart, blinded by the supernova while another rush of galactic radiation rose up from the deep. This time, he kissed her.

His kiss was different, plagued by a deeply buried _need_ torn open by her affection. He wanted to feel her, to taste her, and when she gasped against his mouth he found it both exquisite and awakening. He stopped to gaze upon her, upon her breathless state, to feel her arm trembling against his neck, to revel in the million colors of an incomprehensible sunset.

He felt it again, the buildup, the midichlorian magnetic storm surge, and he fell into the rise of it, as if buoyed by a wave, and let it take him where it would, which was to her.

His arms fell around her, coiled around her, and hers around him, and he couldn't be close enough, he couldn't kiss her enough, he couldn't have enough, and the broadband maddening frequency of his desperation for her was equally matched by her own desperation for him. They were equals, perfect equals, in the force, and the limitations of their power only existed in dual surrender. Now, however, they fought, each claiming more passion, more desire, more need, yet the other was forever able to rise to meet it until, at last, a truce was set, dual-white flags were lifted, and they both stood, loosely holding the other, and panting for breath.

Ben found himself raising his eyes to gaze at the sunlight hazing diagonally through the skylight above. He pulled Rey to his chest and held her there, protectively, possessively, and tenderly. Tiny motes of dust filtered slowly in firefly patterns across the ray of sun. His lips fell to her hair.

"Rey," he said, his voice almost a whisper, and meaning many things.

She returned his embrace with fervor.

How long they stood there, he wasn't sure. Time seemed to warp around her, like it always did around bodies of unusual gravity. But, eventually they had parted, despite how he knew it would tear him at the seams, and despite the tears on her face. It was necessary. They both knew it. But not forever.

It was the "but not forever" part that kept them going.

His dark raven ship was as neat, perfect, and orderly as it always was, but it seemed less satisfying than it once did. He felt as if some part of him had been unraveled into chaos, and the minimalism with which he normally surrounded himself was stifling.

He touched the controls and felt the rush-shift of leaving the ground. That beautiful, beautiful ground. As he sliced through the atmosphere into the blackness of space, he decided he would definitely have to visit this planet again, someday. Perhaps with her.

In short order, he was falling out of light speed with its familiar array of shortening celestial lengths and piloting into the hangar of the First Order's Headquarters. He supposed Hux would be waiting, and probably would start prying. He didn't look forward to it.

As he walked down the ramp of his ship, he was met by two stormtroopers, who joined him on either side as he walked. Ahead, he could see Hux stood with his arms behind his back, gazing at his arrival. A line of stormtroopers stood behind the general.

Kylo stopped in front of Hux and considered him. He was getting an off-frequency about Hux, again. He really was going to have to do something about this, soon.

"Is everything in order, General Hux?" he asked.

"Yes," said Hux.

His title was conspicuously missing. He really didn't want to have to force-choke Hux. Not today.

"Would you like to rephrase that?" Kylo asked him.

Hux lifted his chin, slightly.

"Yes, Kylo Ren," he said, " _Jedi sympathizer_."

A shock of realization shot through him, setting his nerves alight and aflame, and he moved, he moved to attack, to defend, to take his light saber, to use the force, but it was all too late, for it wasn't even half of a second before he'd been besieged by a different shock from behind, by one of the stormtroopers beside him, a shock of spasmic lightning which stopped all liberty, all movement, and, after another instant, all thought, and then, everything became resistant, inevitable blackness and nothing.

-_XI_-


	12. Space

_**A/N: Surprise! Super fast update! This chapter was an immense joy to write because it is the culmination of many chapters' buildup. It came out more easily than I think any chapter yet. General Hugs is one of my faves. Thank you for the beautiful, humbling reviews.**_

-_XII_-

Kylo Ren's consciousness creeped back slowly, like sand falling into an hourglass. At first, he was only aware he was alive, and that he had regained sentience, but then he began to notice things that were awry; he was upright, yet suspended. He couldn't move.

Then everything poured back upon him in a rush; the betrayal by Hux, the declaration of his traitorous allegiance (wrongly applied, he would never be a "Jedi sympathizer"), and the shock which hit him in an unguarded moment. At last, as his full faculties were revived, he opened his eyes. He was in a room like the one with the monolith-table with wall units and computer-bins, yet there was no table here. The center of the room was instead occupied by him and whatever machine it was in which he was suspended. Finding he was able to move his head a little, he realized he'd never seen anything like it. He found it reminiscent of a great looking-glass, round and set upon a thick, stable pedestal stand, yet instead of mirror-glass within its perfectly round, chrome frame was the reddish, shimmering emission which held him both levitated and immobile. The red energy refracted upon itself like sunlight in water and lacked much opacity, seeming delicate, almost. He was submerged within it, yet could breathe the air of the room with perfect normalcy. He observed his captivity with a mild interest, having never felt threatened by the technology of lesser beings, yet he was always interested in something he had never seen, before.

"Ah," said General Hux, arriving with the salutes of the two guards who watched the doorway, "they told me you were waking."

The general turned to the two guards.

"Leave us," he told them, and they did.

"What do you think you're doing, Hux?" asked Kylo Ren.

"Preserving the First Order," he replied, pulling up a perfect, shiny black chair. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing?"

He watched Hux seat himself neatly in the chair before the looking-glass machine and gaze up at him. Hux seemed unusually calm.

"Yes," said Kylo Ren after a moment, beginning to calculate how difficult it might be to break out of all this and toss Hux out of his chair using only head movements to control the force. "You called me a 'Jedi sympathizer'."

"I did," replied Hux.

"That makes no sense," said Kylo. "I tried to destroy the Jedi. I tried to destroy Luke Skywalker. I _hate_ the Jedi."

"You would think it senseless, true," said Hux, crossing one leg casually over the other, "but recent evidence shows otherwise."

Kylo felt cold at once.

Hux waited, watching him, but Kylo didn't speak. After a moment, Hux drew a breath and stood, clasping his hands behind his back.

"You know me to be a careful, deliberate man," said Hux, pacing to the side, like the genesis of a monologue, "and I began to suspect your allegiance in the Ladza system. The passion in which you doggedly pursued the Resistance on Crait was entirely absent at Ladza 440. I watched you as a man going through the motions, not the man I've known you to be, and you disappeared for twelve hours with nothing to show for it but two confused stormtroopers babbling about electrical storms of which the planet's surface showed no report. When the Resistance finally did show up on our radar, which it had _somehow_ known how to evade until then, it was at the same planet which you had been 'searching' just previous. Somehow, they got away without a scratch, and you knew nothing about it, nor did you seem disappointed when we didn't stop them."

Kylo Ren only watched General Hux pace.

"You have made vague attempts to stop the Resistance, I know," said Hux, waving a hand, as if placating a child. "But you forget that I know you. I knew something was wrong. I simply didn't know _what._ "

Hux looked up at him, then glanced down over the mechanical looking-glass as the reddish glow tinged his dark edges.

"I had you watched, after that," he said.

"That's treason," spat Kylo Ren.

"Don't forget," said Hux, "I never did any of this for myself. I did it for the First Order. That is where my loyalty lies."

"Yet it is convenient that with my removal," said Kylo Ren, "you obtain rule over the First Order."

"Who would be better to do so?" he asked.

Kylo Ren had no answer for him, because, if not Kylo, no one was better suited for the role than Hux.

Hux changed tack.

"Do you remember when we visited Aibos?" asked Hux.

"Yes," replied Kylo.

"I found it very interesting that, with a whole planet to explore, you visited the ruins of a Jedi temple. Why would you do that, if you hate the Jedi?" he inquired.

"I merely happened upon it," said Kylo, truthfully.

"I also found it interesting that you seemed to be having a conversation with someone, yet, for all my spy could tell, no one was there with you," said Hux.

Kylo remained silent.

"Who were you talking to?" Hux asked.

Kylo watched Hux, wondering how much force pressure would be required to break the machine he was in, and how long he could incapacitate Hux to do it.

"No one," replied Kylo.

"You seem to have had a lot of conversations with no one," said Hux.

After Kylo gave no response, Hux drew a short breath and monologued again, pacing the floor before Kylo's looking-glass.

"I won't begin to pretend I understand the force," he said, "it is unpredictable, unreliable, and seems to drive its users slowly to madness. To me, it seems like the galaxy would be better off without them. Force users are anomalies; they are mutations. Great sources of power, yes, but…"

Hux walked up to view Kylo in his suspended animation, and he considered for a moment.

"So uncontrollable," said Hux, as if it were a pity.

Hux raised his eyes to meet Kylo's gaze.

"What really happened in Snoke's throne room?" asked Hux.

"Why would I tell you?" asked Kylo.

"I'm dying to know, really," replied Hux.

"You're incapable of understanding it," said Kylo.

"Oh," said Hux, with something of a laugh, spreading his arms out, "it's more of _this_ , is it? The force was involved, so my puny normal mind can't possibly comprehend the complex machinations of the _force_."

"More or less," said Kylo.

"I'm tired of your superiority complex," said Hux, his previous dark humor gone in an instant.

"It's the truth," said Kylo.

"Try me," said Hux.

"No," replied Kylo.

" _Damn you!_ " spat Hux.

There was a long moment wherein the fury of Hux's exclamation hung suspended in the air, and then settled into dust. He became calm again, and sat in the chair to observe Kylo, though there was something new in his eyes as he gazed up at him, a dark resentment, a sullen displeasure.

"I know that you went back to Aibos," said Hux.

Kylo waited for more, yet Hux left it hanging before him like ripe fruit. Seconds passed, and anticipation harassed Kylo, wondering how much Hux knew, how much he'd been given. When Hux spoke next, it came out sounding like the politest inquiry in the galaxy.

"What were you doing on Aibos?" he asked.

"I already told you before," said Kylo. "It was a private investigation."

"Did you return to the Jedi temple?" he asked.

Kylo didn't reply.

"I wonder why you would return to that temple?" mused Hux, as if he already knew the answer to his previous question.

He was becoming weary of Hux's inquiries.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Hux asked.

"Yes," he replied, offering nothing else.

Hux leaned back in his chair.

"What I would pay to know these secrets you keep, Kylo Ren," said Hux, poignant and wry. "But you'll not give them to me, will you?"

Hux stood from his chair before Kylo had a chance to respond.

"Because this is what it's like for a person without the force, yet," said Hux, "despite my-," and he glanced at Kylo, " _handicap,_ you see, I rose to the top of the First Order _without_ the force, without its ability, without its augmentation. I am nothing but a man, yet here I am. And yet there was so much Snoke wouldn't tell me or show me, so much he felt was _beneath my comprehension_ , just like you. You assume that I cannot conceive of things without even giving me a chance to try to conceive!"

"It's because you cannot understand them," replied Kylo.

"How do you know I cannot?" demanded Hux.

"Because you have no sense for it," said Kylo.

"No sense for what?" he asked, commanded, seeming to know the answer, yet wanting it from Kylo's mouth.

"The force," said Kylo, giving him what he wanted.

Hux swung around and kicked the chair in a sudden burst of violence and an anguished cry. It skittered over onto its side, and slid a few feet before the room became silent but for the droning hum of Kylo's looking-glass restraint. Hux stood with his back to Kylo, straight and plain, and as if he hadn't just kicked a chair.

"It was her," said Hux, still facing away, his voice belying his shortness of breath. "The _Jedi_. That's why you went to Aibos."

Kylo refused to offer anything in response.

Hux turned to look up at him and said, "I hid a drone upon your ship."

Kylo swallowed.

Hux spread his hands and said, "I know everything. I know what you have done."

The general moved to the chair, and righted it, resting his hands on the back of it.

"I know how traitorous you have become," he said, almost with regret, almost with _pain,_ as if he was the one who had been betrayed.

"Did you send the assassin?" asked Kylo.

Hux glanced up at him.

"No," said Hux, as if he found that curious. "I did not arrange for any assassins. You know that's not how I do things."

That gave Kylo pause, for he wondered who did.

"Ah, but," said Hux, holding up a finger as he considered, "I did notice one of my spies' disappearance. You do know the hatred for the Jedi runs deep in many of the First Order, don't you?"

"I'm not a Jedi," said Ben.

"What difference does it make?" asked Hux. "You're a force-user, and you're helping the Resistance. That amounts to the same thing, for many."

Kylo glanced away.

"All of those conversations you had," said Hux, "The one-sided ones… you were talking to someone through the force, weren't you?"

He began to study the apparent strength of the chrome which lined the looking-glass, gauging how quickly he would need to snap it to simultaneously disarm Hux.

"The girl," said Hux, "Rey…"

Kylo hated her name on his lips.

"The one who supposedly murdered Snoke, incapacitated you, left you with your lightsaber unharmed, and murdered all of Snoke's guards, _and_ destroyed the throne room _and_ stole Snoke's escape pod," said Hux. "We both know that's not what _really_ happened, don't we?"

"What about her?" asked Kylo, disliking this turn of conversation.

"You've been working together with her all this time, haven't you?" he asked.

Kylo glanced down over Hux, considering the general.

"Yes," he replied.

Hux merely stared at him, perhaps not having expected such a blunt confession.

"Why?" asked Hux, as if the question plagued him. "Why would you risk losing all of this power just to collaborate with _her_? What is she… a junk trader from Jakku? A leader in a ragged band of Resistance fighters? You had rule over the _galaxy._ Was that not enough for you? What more is there to have?"

"You wouldn't understand," replied Kylo.

Hux bit his lips closed, restrained anger clear on his face from being told, again, of his incapacity to understand. He drew a breath, it was short, only slightly unsteady.

"Well," he exhaled. "It is unfortunate that this is where we are. Despite my competition with you, despite our differences, I have maintained a begrudging respect for both your work ethic, and your intelligence."

"Tell me where you are going with this," said Kylo, having no patience for Hux's compliments.

"It has been determined that, for the good and unity of the First Order, you will be publicly tried and executed for treason," said Hux shortly.

"I assume that it is you that determined that," said Kylo.

"Yes," said Hux, "yet, it is not what I want."

"What do you want?" asked Kylo.

"That you cannot give me," said Hux.

"Why not?" asked Kylo.

"Because, as you are fond of saying, I am not capable of comprehension," said Hux, wry.

"Then we are at an impasse," said Kylo.

"It is unfortunate," Hux said again.

Kylo assumed now was as good a time as any to force his way out of his entrapment, and so, with one last moment's calculation, he closed his eyes to draw, pull, inhale from the force between all things in the universe.

And he felt nothing.

It wasn't there.

He couldn't feel it.

 _Panic._

For the first time in Kylo Ren/Ben Solo's life, he couldn't feel the force, he couldn't find it, he couldn't sense it, nothing, not a single particle, not a single sensation. It was nothing, emptiness, nothingness, deep, dense, empty, black, space, agony, desperation, fear, and then terror.

He opened his eyes with a ragged inhale. He felt a faint sheen of sweat break out on his temple.

"Do you remember why we went to Aibos in the first place, Kylo Ren?" asked General Hux, seeming to discern Kylo's distress. Yet, the general was calm.

Kylo found himself so entrapped in the rapid misfire of being rendered impotent that he couldn't reply.

"To meet with rare and innovative arms dealers… on a planet with an ancient Jedi temple," said Hux, clasping his hands behind his back. He glanced over the looking-glass that held Kylo. "You didn't notice this particular field of research, I suppose. It's a field of energy that reflects the force. Very useful for containing Jedi, or, as one needs, _Jedi sympathizers_. I'm glad I found it. Otherwise, who knows what you would do."

Kylo couldn't seem to control the shivering that wracked his body. He had never felt so powerless, he had never known this fear.

Hux watched him, not seeming to revel in Kylo's predicament. In fact, although duty-bound to the First Order, he seemed to feel regret over such a waste of a powerful resource in Kylo Ren.

"Well," said Hux with a sigh. "Tomorrow's the day. Try to make the most of your time until then."

The general turned around and left, and Kylo watched him, shattered.

How could this be? How could this happen? How did he get here?

Parts of his mind refused to function together, his anxiety and panic blinded him, like the diamond-bright seconds before a total solar eclipse. He couldn't control his breathing. He was alone, more alone than anything he had ever experienced. He was bereft, lost, dead matter adrift in zero gravity without an atmosphere on which to cling.

He may never get the chance to change _anything_.

He may never get the chance to do any of the things he wanted to do.

He may never get the chance to say any of the things he wanted to say.

He may never again feel the force.

He may never again see _her and her radiant bloom in the darkness of space._

Space had never seemed to vast, so empty, or so desolate.

-_XII_-


	13. Looking-Glass

_**A/N - Well fast chapter again, I got sick so writing is something I'm good at while sitting around trying to get better! This was a more difficult chapter to write. But cathartic. Enjoy!**_

-_XIII_-

That single day felt like a hundred days to Kylo Ren. At first, he spent it in denial, searching, creeping at his edges, feeling across every space to see if there were any cracks where even a single mote of the force could seep through. There was nothing, though. Hux's trap was watertight. Relentless, he searched again and again, yet was at last forced to admit defeat.

Then, he waited for opportunity.

He watched the guards. They were relieved what seemed to be once every few hours. He wondered when he would be relieved. Eventually, this question was answered, when a stormtrooper approached him with an unusual device, blue lightning glowing at its edges. The stormtrooper thrust it into the red glow of Ben's looking-glass, contacting with his leg, and a shock ran through him and everything fell dark.

He woke again suspended in the looking-glass, and he didn't know how much later it was, yet he was aware that his physical needs had been taken care of. He supposed they were smart not to allow him a moment's consciousness outside of the force shield, but he was beginning to feel strained, weakened, even wilted by the lack of the force in his body. He needed it like a plant needs water to live.

He gazed at the stormtroopers by the door.

"What time is it?" he asked.

They glanced at him, then looked at each other, as if they weren't sure whether to respond.

"Is it tomorrow yet?" he settled on asking.

"No," replied one.

He fell into a moue, wondering how General Hux planned on executing him. Despite his displeasure at his circumstances, Kylo Ren was a logical, reasonable man, and he understood Hux's intentions. Kylo would be executed for his crimes against the First Order, for his betrayal. His actions were, and would be, destructive to the First Order's mission to control the galaxy. Were Kylo in Hux's position, he would have probably come to the same conclusion. It was what was done to traitors. He even understood why Hux would make it public; to make an example, to unify the First Order behind his decision, to make it clear. To let there be no question about where the new leadership of the First Order would lie. Hux was executing the law precisely in the way it should be to assure justice was adequately served.

Of course, that didn't mean he liked it. He would, naturally, continue to watch for opportunity, but if these were, somehow, to be his last hours, he decided he would have to consider very carefully how they were to be executed.

First, he thought about Rey.

He thought about the extraordinary kisses they had shared. He thought about how he wasn't fully sure how extraordinary they might be, since he had nothing to compare them to. He thought about the door to a whole, new world which had been scarcely opened to him before he'd been yanked away. Perhaps he would never breach its threshold. To never explore his potential with Rey brought him a unique pain, like a gash down the length of his soul, which refused to close. Thinking of her brought him frustration, so he turned towards the other shadows in his mind, to choose one to deal with next.

He thought of the last things his uncle had said to him. That'd he'd always be with him, that he hadn't come to save him, … that he was sorry. Recalling the scene made Kylo's hackles rise, it made him bristle, it made the defensive child in him cower behind a mask of bravado and rage. How foolish had he been not to see his uncle was only a projection… there were so many signs, but Kylo had been blinded by pain. It brought him back to that night, to the glow of Luke's green lightsaber reflected in his uncle's eyes; they were eyes that looked at Ben and saw a monster. If even the eyes of a Jedi like Luke Skywalker saw him as a monster, that must be what he was.

He felt his breath intake tremble and an involuntary tear fell from his chin. Now, here he was, caged like a monster. He would be put down like a monster. Perhaps it was inevitable things would end up this way.

He thought of the last things Han Solo had said to him, to leave with him, to 'come home', but where was home? Was it anywhere? He had no true concept of what home was. Han Solo said Snoke was using him for his power, but Kylo Ren had already known that. His power was all anyone ever wanted from him. Either they wanted to use his power, or they were afraid of it. Sometimes, like in the case of Hux, it was both. Snoke had told him that if he were to take the life of Han Solo, he would finally be at peace, but Snoke was wrong or manipulating him or trying to ruin his sanity, or trying to control him. Or everything.

He drew a shaky breath and let it out.

The relief he felt from killing Snoke was coupled with the unmooring of the only anchor he'd had left. He was adrift, and he'd been adrift since Snoke's death. He'd once thought Rey would fill that void, but instead she'd left it vacant, gaping, bleeding. The blood of his soul had been littered, sprayed across the landscape of Crait on that day.

He thought of his mother, at the last, when he could not fire upon her in her ship. That was when he knew Snoke was wrong about everything. He would never have peace following Snoke's council. He may never have peace at all in this life, under any circumstances, but he did realize then that the promised peace and surety that Snoke peddled day by day was a lie, perhaps a ruse. After that, it was only a matter of time before Kylo revolted against him.

He felt a sigh escape him and he waited.

He mused on the echoes of the memory of colors, vibrant, brilliant, breathtaking in the force around Rey, only remembering sensations like the memory of flavor, not perfect, but faint and reminiscent.

To meditate now would only accentuate the lack of the force in him, because there was nothing there; nothing to find, nothing on which to focus.

Or was there?

What did he have inside him worth knowing without the force?

He gazed ahead in his red-water transparent suspended animation, not really seeing, but absorbed in wondering. He wasn't even sure who he was without the force.

He thought about distant memories, the ones before his strength in the force dismantled his life piece by piece, memories of sunlight, and shared meals, and running beneath the scattered branches of a forest. Of dirt, and collecting berries and insects and the scent of water. The soul-rich warmth of familial embraces. Laughter.

Another tear dropped from his face and his breath caught before he could stop it.

What would he give to have that again? Could he have that again? Was it even possible?

Did he _deserve_ to have it?

That was the crux; he was a monster.

Fighting to steady his breath, he struggled to control the tears which began to freely flow down his cheeks.

He didn't ask for this; he'd never asked for any of this. He'd only tried to figure out which way to go, what to do, what was the best use of his power. Blatant hypocrisy and induced pain from the Jedi drove him away, and the duality of the Sith sliced him in half. He belonged nowhere, with no one, in no order, and yet everyone seemed to have an opinion of what they thought he should do or be. He was never allowed to be what he was, which was neither Jedi or Sith, he was nothing.

He was _nothing_.

To think such a thing may seem like it would be disagreeable, but to Ben it felt liberating. He wanted to be nothing, to be labeled as nothing, to simply be who what where he was, and let that be all there was to it. He didn't want to fight someone else's war. He'd been fighting his own internal war his entire life, and he'd grown tired of it.

He was _done_ with it.

Now, even if his life only lasted a few more hours, he decided he would stop fighting that war, the one with himself, the one that never seemed to find its own conclusion. He decided that maybe there was no conclusion to be made; maybe he simply was what he was, neither dark or light, certainly not perfect, but not worthless, either. Maybe it was possible that, somewhere, what he was could be acceptable. The only place he had control over, however, was within himself, and it was there that he would decide that, yes, he was acceptable.

He allowed himself for the first time to feel sorrow over what he had done to his father, to how his father had, at the last, helped him, allowed it to happen, given him the only thing he had left to give; his life. He grieved over the blindness he'd allowed Snoke to pull over his eyes; that killing his father would free him somehow, that it would turn him, that he would be sure, that he would know. It had done the opposite. He had been clamped into agonizingly leaden locks and chains at that moment, forced to carry the weight every moment since then, to pretend it wasn't there, to ignore it while it slowly churned him apart inside. It broke him.

He heard a soft sob fall from his own lips and struggled to reign himself in, not wanting the guards to see.

He was bitter. Bitter towards his mother, his father, his uncle, and as an extension, everyone who had used him in his life. But behind that bitterness was a weeping vulnerability, not even scars, but open wounds that had never healed and which he guarded like a rabid dog.

It was then that he knew that Rey couldn't fix him as he'd hoped she might. She was, at best, a bandage that could only slow the bleeding for a while.

Ben was going to have to tend his own wounds.

In the time he had left, he did the best he could do, because that was all he could do.

-_O_-

General Hux came to fetch Ben himself on what he assumed was the next day. It had seemed to stretch on and on, like a form of torture unto itself, but he'd had time to think in a way he'd not thought perhaps for his entire life. Something about the process gave him a certain amount of serenity. While still alert to opportunity, he was also at peace with the possible worst outcome. He'd wrestled with many of his demons.

Hux approached him and looked over his suspended form.

"Well," said Hux, and his pause was longer than one would expect. "It's time."

He turned to the guards with him and gestured.

"Let's go," said Hux and he moved towards the doors as two guards leveraged his looking-glass onto a movable platform.

As they moved through the passages towards the hangar, Kylo observed Hux. He didn't seem to want to make eye contact.

"General Hux," said Kylo.

"Yes?" asked Hux, his gaze ahead, towards their destination.

"What are you going to do with the First Order?" he asked.

Hux glanced at him.

"I'm going to continue our mission, to control the galaxy," Hux replied.

"You've almost done it," said Kylo.

"That's true," said Hux.

"Then what will you do?" he asked. "Once you're done with the galaxy?"

"Manage it, I suppose," said Hux. "There'll be no where else to expand."

"That's bad for business," said Kylo.

"Lack of war, you mean?" asked Hux.

"Yes," said Kylo. "The Money won't like that."

Hux didn't respond.

Kylo watched him.

"I suppose that's my problem, not yours," clipped Hux.

"Now it is," said Kylo.

Hux's frown deepened and he went back to ignoring Kylo.

"Perhaps they'll start a war to rejuvenate the machine," suggested Kylo.

"Would you stop talking?" said Hux, shortly.

"Or you might have to start one yourself," said Kylo. "How good are you at manufacturing causes for war, Hux?"

Hux glanced sharply at a guard, who used the butt of his rifle to strike Kylo through the red-water in the gut, cutting him off and knocking out his breath. He coughed a little.

Ahead, he could see light, the bright light of day, where the hangar gave way to the planet upon which they'd landed. The square of light approached them, blinding him, until the adjustment allowed him to see where they were. They were on one of the First Order's headquarter planets, one on which troops were trained and government buildings were located.

They were on a dais, framed by the sharp, minimalist colors of the First Order: black, white, red, some gray. It was almost like a stage, high enough to provide a view, if perfect blocks of white storm troopers could be considered crowds. It had a podium and was fenced in by an almost waist-high partition, with steps leading down to where the storm troopers waited, as well as smaller groups of the more human-looking officers in black uniforms. Towering above, yet much further back, were a few AT-AT walkers, and along the edges were groups of droids, some various tank vehicles and above, in the sky, were heavy clouds.

He was wheeled in and left on the stage, the spectacle, the force-monster. Hux came in front, to the podium, and spoke.

He spoke of the First Order, of their victories, of their dominance, of their hard work and dedication, and of the inevitability of their future success. It was quite stirring, Kylo had to admit, because he knew General Hux believed, breathed and lived every word of it.

Yet that's not why they were gathered, today.

General Hux pulled Kylo Ren's lightsaber hilt out of his coat and laid it upon the podium; a representation of what he was and what he stood for. The Force. The unknown. Raw, untamed power.

Hux began by reading the list of grievances against Kylo Ren, the evidences of betrayal, the traitordom, the _fraternizing with the enemy_. It was a painfully long list of grievances. At the end, he gazed out upon the perfect squares of identical stormtrooper faces.

"It has hereby been proposed that Supreme Commander Kylo Ren be put to death for betrayal of the First Order," rang out the voice of General Hux, soft-echoes falling through his voice magnification, "in accordance with the law. If there be any who oppose this order for any reason, make it known now."

This, Kylo supposed, was the First Order's nod towards some semblance of democracy, but it wasn't as if anyone would dare oppose an order made in accordance with the law. At least, not in front of General Hux. There was silence except for the sound of fabric shifting in the wind around the stage.

"Let the punishment be affixed," accounced General Hux, and he signaled to a group of six officers, who mounted the stage, pistols in hand and fanned out in front of Kylo's looking-glass in a semicircle.

Kylo watched each of them. Some avoided eye-contact, others looked merely to be executing duty, others yet glared at him with loathing.

"Officers ready?" called Hux, standing to the side.

The officers raised their pistols, aiming at Kylo Ren. He wondered at how easy it once was to subdue these officers, and how, if he had the force, he could have had them cowering in an instant. It must have been reflected on his face, because a few of them showed signs of fear and hesitation, despite his containment.

"Aim," said Hux.

Kylo waited for it. He looked at Hux, who met his eyes. The pause was interminable.

Then there was a sound beyond them, beyond the stage, the unsteady rush of a sonic boom in the skies. He could hear the high, wind-like movement of ships, and then all hell broke loose.

"Incoming!" he heard someone yell.

Within a second, two resistance X-wing ships shot diagonally across the perfect blocks of stormtroopers, causing their perfection to shiver and tremble at the seams, and flew past in a glorious orange and white blur.

"Battlestations!" Hux's voice yelled, and the officers appeared to be scrambling.

As Hux strode across the stage, he suddenly turned with ferocity towards Kylo Ren.

"What… did… you… _do?"_ he seethed.

Ben looked up to see dark, heavy clouds parted by the silver bellies of Resistance ships. There were so many of them.

He smiled faintly.

"I don't know."

-_XIII_-


	14. Power

-_XIV_-

While watching several of the Resistance transports land under the clearing fire of X-wing fighters, he noticed a movement below him on the stage. It was Hux, and he was looking at Kylo Ren, and he looked to be calculating. Pulling back his coat, he revealed a pistol at his side.

"Hux, no," said Kylo. He couldn't get this close, so close to seeing her again, to feeling the force again, and lose it all at the last.

"It's either me or you, Kylo Ren," said Hux, pulling out his pistol. "I can't risk you getting out of there alive."

"Let me out," he said. "It's me they've come for."

"That's what I'm afraid of," replied Hux.

"Give me up and save your troops," said Kylo, bargaining.

"Do you think I don't know how much more damage you can do than a handful of troops?" asked Hux, pointing the pistol at him, though Kylo noticed it trembling. "We are in a _war_ , Kylo!"

Kylo glanced at the war behind Hux, off-stage, the melee littered with explosions and yells and the madness of rifle fire. He felt a rush of adrenaline when he spied the telltale double-ended white lightsaber in the fray, fighting, creating a dearth around her with the force, forever pushing forward, throwing everything out of her way to get to him. He needed more time. He glanced back down at Hux.

"Isn't that exactly what the First Order needs?" asked Kylo.

Hux's breath was unsteady as he seemed to be trying to make sense of Kylo Ren's words.

"A _war_?" prompted Kylo. "You have to keep the money flowing somehow, Hux. For the good of the First Order. For the good of its _investors_."

"Stop talking," said Hux, still pointing the pistol at him, seeming to try to steady his resolve.

"You can't begin to pretend that the First Order would be anything without those who are getting rich off its conquests," said Kylo. "Once the profits dry up they'll all desert you, and someone else will take over."

" _I said stop talking!"_ yelled Hux, unraveled, and for the first time, Kylo was certain his death was nigh.

At that moment, however, he watched Hux flung sidelong across the stage, as if prey to a great wave, as his pistol fire went awry into the rafters and he struck a supporting pillar and fell to the ground. Turning to see, it was _her_ , with her hand out, claw-like, powerful, her features animated with a voracious ferocity. She glanced at him and charged at his looking-glass, striking through the metal loop with the her bright-white lightsaber and a primal cry, breaking the force field, releasing his suspension. The red-water energy melted away into nothing and he dropped with the sudden influx of gravity to the floor of the stage, upon his hands and knees, consumed by trembling.

Slowly, slowly, he felt the force return to him, the color from his drained conscience returned, rich, lavish, and with each breath he burst back into glorious, flowering life. He couldn't breathe enough, he couldn't feel enough, the relief was all-encompassing, and he reveled in it.

From his knees, he looked up at Rey standing above him, dark, a silhouette haloed by broken shards of sun behind her through the scattered clouds, a fierce fight in her stature, gripping her brilliant lightsaber staff in one hand like she knew exactly how to use it.

"I love you," he said, rash, passionate, his voice scarcely believing the words he said, but he felt them through every particle of his body, a warm, vibrant frequency that was akin to worship.

She only paused a beat.

"I know," she said, and he knew she was smiling.

She held out her hand and his lightsaber hilt flew from the podium into his outstretched hand. As he stood, she came into bas-relief, her features, her desert bloom wonderland. He couldn't take his eyes away.

"How did you get them to come for me?" he asked, bewildered by the battle behind them.

"There's something you didn't take into account before," she said. "There's a striking difference between the First Order and the Resistance. You said they were the same, but they're not, Ben. There's one thing the Resistance has that the First Order will never have."

He gazed at her.

"What is it?" he asked.

" _Forgiveness,"_ she replied.

The moment she spoke the word, the truth of it seeped through him, like cold water through porous stone, chilling him, waking him, bending his previously held paradigms, that in this she was right, and he had been wrong. The proof of it was here, now. From the First Order he had expected nothing but justice, and even when it worked against him he understood it because it used reason. That's how a body maintained order. He had expected the same from the Resistance, because that was what made sense to Kylo Ren. Now he realized that he'd been looking at both sides with the same lens, and that was his fundamental flaw. He felt the crushing weight of humility and gratitude fall upon his shoulders.

Just then there was the shot of a pistol from the side, and Rey deflected it away from Ben with her lightsaber blade, but it grazed her shoulder.

 _Hux!_

Outraged, Kylo Ren ripped the pistol from General Hux's hand and then tore him from the ground by his neck, crushing him against the pillar with all the force he could muster. Stalking towards the general, he lit his lightsaber blade. Hux's eyes glanced down at the now-white blade, perplexed, then afraid, and then back to Kylo Ren.

"You couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?" demanded Kylo.

"I told you…," said Hux, scarcely able to speak, "it was… me or you."

Kylo regarded him.

It certainly could have been that way.

Justice would certainly demand it be that way. General Hux was a man of justice, of law, of perfectly kept rules. Kylo saw it all in his eyes. This was _war,_ and with the upper hand, and with the opportunity to do it, and with his own public execution at Hux's command having been thwarted, Kylo Ren certainly _should_ have, according to a reasonable sense of justice, taken Hux's life. It was likely no one would blame him, should he do so. It would be expected.

But Ben wasn't about following rules.

Before he'd made any movement one way or the other, he could see Hux recognized it in his eyes, that he wasn't going to kill him, and the general's face reflected a lack of comprehension, almost a fear of the unknown, of the unhinged. The idea of mercy was a foreign concept to Hux. He didn't understand. He didn't know what this meant, and Ben knew that "why?" would haunt him in his every waking hour.

But for Kylo Ren, it was a start.

He put General Hux under with the force, gently, deeply, into instant unconsciousness, and dropped him to the ground.

Turning to face Rey, he said:

"Let's get out of here."

It was with a certain measure of delight he returned to the battlefield with her; there was a cathartic, chaotic fulfillment that came from it, raising their dual-white lightsabers, blazing like dual-white flags of surrender only to each other, a surrender through which they found their greatest strengths. They fought with brilliance, in tandem and foresight against all who would oppose or hinder their way, a militial beast with no backs. The force was theirs to wield as they would. There was nothing that would stop him, or her, and in that moment he believed this might be what it feels like to be immortal.

By the time they reached the platform of the Resistance transport, the stormtroopers had stopped attacking them, and were either moving out of their way or taking flight in the other direction.

Once they were inside, the platform closed, they sheathed their lightsabers, and Rey pulled him onto an elevator.

It felt familiar, being with her alone on an elevator.

He wondered if she felt it, too.

He watched the shifting light of movement between ship levels flow across her face. Her gaze didn't leave him.

They felt the elevator slow, then stop, and then the familiar shift-stretch of the ship going into lightspeed.

The elevator began to move again, and yet he couldn't take his eyes off her. Her breath was short, but he noticed so was his.

All at once, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him forward, against her, as she fell back against the wall of the elevator, forcing him down to kiss him. He scrambled to find his footing and he kissed her back and then used the wall to kiss her again, to find purchase, to embrace her, to crush her with his wild affection.

At the end of the kiss, grown soft after the roughness of need, gentle after mutual violence, he found himself keeping her in his arms and touching her face tenderly.

"Where are we going?" he asked her, his voice coming out soft, quiet, intimate.

She looked up at him and bit the inside of her lip.

"We're going to see your mother," she replied.

He drew away at once, both from the cold-water splash of knowing he'd soon be facing his mother (which he'd rather not), and from the idea of having the elevator doors open to the view of Leia Organa while in such an intimate position. He exhaled shakily. He suddenly felt extremely exposed, painfully vulnerable, and his hackles wanted to rise.

"Ben," said Rey, approaching him, too close. "Listen to me."

He glanced at her.

"I told her everything," she said, "I used the force. You know as well as I how powerful she is with the force. She can know I'm telling the truth. She can discern it."

He glanced away, looking over the doors, his breathing ragged.

"Do you have any idea how much you have done for the Resistance over the past year?" she asked. "Do you realize that, without you, the Resistance would have been completely snuffed out before it could have regained its footing enough to grow again? Do you understand that, essentially, you orchestrated your own rescue today?"

He stared at her.

"If you hadn't preserved us, we wouldn't have become what we are," she said. "You are why the Resistance still exists, Ben. You did this."

He couldn't comprehend it.

"And we have become strong," she said, a smile on her face. "Strong enough to give hope to the galaxy."

He glanced away in denial.

She touched his hand.

He tried not to flinch away from her touch.

The elevator doors opened.

All eyes on the bridge of this Resistance transport were on Kylo Ren. Like layers of officers, they fanned out across the terminals and navigational arrays as pairs of eyes, focused on a single point, _him_ , and at the head of this formation, furthest away from him, was his mother, standing and wearing a celestial shade of off-white.

He felt obvious, wrong, knobby, dark. Monstrous. Dimly aware of Rey exiting the elevator in front of him, he supposed he would have to move, eventually. Touching his lightsaber hilt at his belt, he stepped into the room, shearing his expression into complete indifference. He found it ironic that the exact same expression appeared to be on the face of his mother.

He gazed upon his mother from across the bridge, as if daring her to blink first. No one moved, only the mild sounds from the navigational arrays punctured the silence.

Rey came between them and broke their stalemate, and he found his eyes drawn to her hopeful face.

"General Organa," said Rey, "Having been convicted of treason and sentenced to execution by the First Order for protecting Resistance efforts, I request sanctuary aboard your ship on behalf of Ben Solo."

He stared at Rey.

"Your request is accepted," said Leia.

He glanced at his mother.

After a moment, she spoke.

"I know what you have done," said Leia to him. "Both the bad and the good."

He worked to quiet a trembling in his core.

She suddenly looked wry.

"It's never easy for us Skywalkers, is it?" she asked rhetorically.

She always had to make a joke at the worst of times.

Drawing a breath and letting it out, she glanced down and leaned her elbow upon a control panel.

"Ben," she said, then looked back up at him, "we've been through a lot. I can't deny, however, what your interference has done for the Resistance. This isn't where I thought we would be, after that day on Crait."

He glanced at Rey.

"But, here we are," said Leia. "Allies, somehow."

He returned his gaze to his mother.

"Why did you do it? Why did you save us?" she asked him, as if searching for answers. "What turned you?"

His gaze fell to Rey and the genesis of a smile began to bloom on her face.

"She did," he said simply.

The point of focus in the room fell blessedly away from him for a moment, and onto Rey, who glanced down under the weight of it.

"Everything he did," said Rey, her voice quiet, "was done of his own choice, his own volition."

Leia glanced over Rey, seeming to be pleased with her, and then returned her attention to Ben.

"I would be remiss if I didn't tell you I'm relieved you're here," she said. "I didn't know if I'd ever see you, again."

He bit the inside of his lip.

"I thought you were gone, forever," she said.

There was a long moment of silence.

"I was never gone," he said, finding the words falling from his mouth, and though his voice was weak it permeated the atmosphere of the room like the slicing of a lightsaber through metal. "I was… _lost._ "

There was a strain at Leia's edges, as if a struggle were taking place, and she glanced down for a moment.

"Well," she said, looking back up to him and giving him a thin smile. "We are glad you're found."

There was still so much left to unpack between them, but now there wasn't time. His focus shifted from his mother to Rey's rosebud face.

"Where are we going?" he asked Rey.

Rey looked to Leia.

"To Ilum system, sector 7G," said Leia.

Kylo Ren knew that system.

"We're going to Ilum?" asked Kylo, "but the Empire mined it down to practically nothing. It's scarcely even stable."

"Why else would we go to Ilum?" asked Leia. "We're going to get kyber crystals, of course."

Kylo Ren paused to take that in.

"Why do we need kyber crystals?" he asked carefully.

"To make lightsabers," she answered plainly.

"For… whom?" he asked, glancing at Rey.

"I told you I'd been gathering force users," said Rey, "and teaching them the ways of the force."

"No," said Kylo Ren, shaking his head, taking an unconscious step back. "No. I'll not have anything to do with the Jedi."

"Ben-," began Leia.

"You can't do this," he said, protesting, "not again. It's the same ridiculous cycle again and again. I'll have nothing to do with it."

"Listen," said Leia, but he almost felt panicked.

" _I'm not a Jedi_ ," he said, and then he pointed at Rey. "Neither should she be. Nor should anyone!"

"Who are you to say what anyone should be?" demanded Leia.

"It's a flawed system!" said Kylo. "Flawed to its core. I'll not help anyone take a single step down that path. It brought me nothing but misery."

 _"Then fix it!"_ commanded General Leia Organa.

Ben caught his breath.

"What?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

"Fix it," said Leia, then she glanced at Rey. "With her."

His mother acted like that was the most normal, reasonable idea in the world. Maybe it was.

"You're all we've got," said Leia, glancing between them. "If you can't fix it, no one can."

He and Rey exchanged a glance. The hope he saw on her rosebud face, the anticipation, it consumed him.

All at once, he saw the beginnings of a whole, new galaxy.

All at once, he had power, but it wasn't power wrested; it was power freely given.

With the soft power between them, under the guidance of the force, they would shape generations to come.

-_XIV_-


	15. Join Me

-_XV_-

Epilogue.

Following the business with the kyber crystals on Ilum, the Resistance ships they had traveled with returned to their home base in the Eflion system, where the Jedi sympathizers with ample funding and their own kyber crystal mine dwelt.

"I suppose it's because the kyber crystals on Ilum are denser and more powerful," Rey was saying to a Resistance officer who happened to be transporting with them to the home base planet's surface. He was the stormtrooper traitor Kylo Ren had thought he'd gotten rid of on Starkiller Base. "These local ones don't have quite the formations Ilum kyberite does."

"Do you think that's why Ilum is the traditional kyber crystal site for the Jedi?" asked the traitor.

"I would think the quality of the crystals would be why," said Rey.

"You're probably right," said the traitor.

They had such an easy rapport. Kylo Ren despaired that he would never attain such ease.

"So…," said the traitor, glancing at Kylo, "do you think you could stop glaring at me now?"

"I'm not glaring at you," Kylo replied.

"Right," said the traitor, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, you'd think I'd be the one glaring at you for nearly killing me with a lightsaber."

"I didn't kill you," emphasized Kylo. "Nearly suggests mercy."

The traitor looked at Rey, who appeared apologetic.

"Just," said Rey, placating the traitor, "give him time."

The traitor let out a sigh and they moved on to talk about other things. It seemed so easy. He watched them with a type of fascination.

Landing on the surface, they left the transport and Rey took him to where he would stay. It was something like a village, within a temperate forest, with headquarters based in a nearby mountainside. It was nice. Messy. Interesting.

His home, for now, was to be a small cabin on the outskirts of the force-users training grounds. His black First Order clothing seemed out of place, here. He felt as if he stuck out like a sore thumb.

Rey opened the door to his cabin and gestured, so he ducked inside and she followed. It was quite simple. It was one small room, with a bed, a chest, a small table and a chair, and a bookshelf.

"I know it's not what you're used to," she began, but he held up a hand.

"It's fine," he said.

"Yes, but you're-,"

"Rey," he said, and she stopped. "I'm nothing."

"But not to me," she said with a small laugh.

He felt a moment of embarrassment over his failed proposal so long ago in Snoke's throne room. As he glanced over to her, she was leaning against his doorframe, in the glow of mid-afternoon sunlight.

"How did you know I was in trouble, Rey?" he asked.

She shifted her weight and crossed the threshold. He noticed she closed the door behind her.

"You were gone," she said, "… completely absent from the force. That's not like you."

"No, it isn't," he said.

"I mean," she said with a small laugh, "you almost died of heartbreak when I disappeared for two days."

He cleared his throat and glanced away, feeling obvious.

"So, I was sure your complete absence meant something had happened," she said, "I was already on alert, anyway. I was worried about you going back."

It felt nice, having someone worry about him.

"It was fortunate General Hux's planned execution of you wasn't a secret," she said. "It was easy to find out, he let it be made known. I don't think he thought in a million years that someone would come to rescue you, or that the Resistance had grown strong enough to do anything about it. For him it was a show of power. The only problem I faced was convincing General Organa and getting mobilized and there in time."

She let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm so glad she listened to me," said Rey.

"So am I," replied Ben.

"She loves you, Ben," said Rey.

He glanced away.

"Despite everything," Rey added.

He looked over Rey's face as he considered that. Perhaps he could do the same.

She moved to the bookshelf and pulled out a book, it looked familiar to him.

"I've put half of the sacred Jedi texts in here for you," she said. "I have the other half."

"What shall I want with those?" he asked.

"Well," she said, flipping idly through the pages of the text in her hands, "We are going to have to find what's right in these, and throw out what's wrong."

He gazed at the text in her hands, fully feeling, for the first time, the heavy responsibility of correcting the Jedi order.

"Rey," he said, moving to take the text from her hands.

She gave it to him freely, curious.

"We have to get this right," he said, feeling it in his bones.

Her face blossomed into a smile.

"With the force, we will," she said, and he knew they could. "Will you help me? With the force users?"

"Yes," he replied, carefully placing the text back on the shelf. "But we are going to have to change some things about the Jedi, immediately."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Attachment," he said, gazing at her.

He approached her, allowing his full height to force her to gaze up at him.

"I will not give up attachment," he said, with immoveable intent, making a stand, not just before her, but before the force, and before all the Jedi who had come and gone before. "It's not a weakness. It doesn't compromise my strength in the force. If anything, it enhances who I am and what I am capable of. It increases compassion. It enlarges my soul. Without it, I am unmoored, unanchored, tossed about by the shifting winds. With it, I know who I am and what I stand for."

She watched him, appearing fascinated.

"The days of viewing attachment to others as a weakness are over," he pronounced.

"Good," she said, softly, her eyes belying her attachment to him. "I agree… wholeheartedly."

He considered her, and he built his courage.

"Rey," he said, his voice having gained a certain gentleness. "It's time to let the old things die."

"The Jedi, the Sith," he went on, "What you and I are capable of creating could live on, even thrive, after the First Order and the Resistance have been long forgotten."

He removed his glove, and she watched as he did it.

"I want you to join me," he said, feeling his breath go short.

He hesitated, but finally shifted his eyes to her. Something about this made him feel nervous, yet he had to make amends for past failures. She had to know that this wasn't a one-sided affair; that if he was to join her, then she would surrender to him, as well. They were to be equals, in all things.

"We can rule together," he said, struggling to keep his voice solid, "We can bring a new order to the galaxy."

"Ben," she said, and familiar tears tinged her eyes.

"Join me," he said, holding out his hand for her, a plea, almost a begging, " _… please."_

He clutched his spare glove tightly in his other hand.

Her hand, her perfect hand, soft, tapered, golden, rose slowly to fall, relinquishing itself to his grasp at last. He exhaled all at once and brought it passionately to his mouth, kissing it, worshipping it, relieved.

"You Skywalkers are so dramatic," she said after a moment, a smile playing at her face. "That _was_ a proposal, wasn't it?"

A small laugh, exasperated, escaped him, and he didn't know whether to laugh more or burst into mindless tears.

"What else could it be?" he asked, as waves of relief continued to wash through him.

She glanced down over his face, over the right side of his face.

"Ben," she said.

"Yes?" he asked.

She hesitated a moment.

"Can I look at your scar?" she asked.

"If you'd like," he replied, sitting down on what was to be his bed to remove his height from precluding her inspection.

She approached, looking down upon him, her eyes on the right side of his face. She reached out and curled a lock of his hair back in an almost-touch, away from his face, revealing the length of his scar to her view. He wasn't accustomed to such scrutiny. A chill ran across his back as her fingers touched his hair, but he attempted to behave normally.

Her eyes glanced down to where it disappeared into the collar of his tunic.

"I want to see all of it," she said, and he glanced up at her at once. "Lie down."

He obeyed her, though he found the synapses in his mind began misfiring with the unfamiliarity of the situation, he didn't know what to think, or what her purpose might be.

She sat beside his hip, touched the collar of his tunic, and began undoing the clasps.

"We are definitely going to have to get you some new clothes," she said, her voice soft, as he laid helpless beneath her dissection. "You stick out a bit in this. And besides… is it comfortable?"

"Yes," he said, unable to take his eyes from her face.

"I suppose it's made well enough," she said, pulling his tunic completely open on his right side, revealing the entirety of his scar, his shoulder, his heart. He wondered, briefly, if she might tear out his heart, now. He wondered just after if it would be worth it if she did. Maybe.

Her eyes wandered over his scar, to where it ended deeply in his upper chest. She sucked in a breath through her teeth and then sighed.

"It's terrible," she said. "It must have been so painful."

"No, I-," he began, but her fingertip touched it and he lost his ability to breathe. As she traced the length of his scar with her light, delicate fingertips he wrestled with his composure. Finally, he managed between breaths: "Lightsaber wounds are clean… cauterized. There's… little pain."

She lifted her gaze to his.

"At first," he finished.

Her eyes fell to his mouth and he thought she might kiss him, but she didn't. She touched his scar again, lightly.

"I'm sorry," she said, her fingertips faint, caressing, maddening. He couldn't imagine what she could be sorry for.

"For what?" he asked.

"For this, of course," she said, glancing down at his scar, as if it should have been obvious. Maybe it should have been. He was having difficulty concentrating. "Ever since I saw all of it, that day, through our connection in the force… there's something I've wanted to do."

"What is that?" he asked, willing to give her anything.

She leaned over him, and first it was her strands of hair that brushed against his chest, and then her mouth as she kissed the end of his scar, warm, almost hot, deafening and blinding. He drew a sharp breath.

"Rey," he breathed.

She kissed him again and again, diagonally, across the scar's length, over his collarbone, across the trembling pliancy of his neck, and to his jawline as his eyes closed on their own; he was overcome. She'd kissed his face, his brow, and the faint scar's end on his forehead before he was able to open his eyes again and look up at her in wonder.

"Why?" he whispered.

"Because," she began from above him, and he took her face in his hand, he cupped her cheek, he adored her.

"I love you," she finished. It was her declaration, stated as if important, yet as something that should have already been obvious.

He gazed up at her, not knowing what he had done to deserve this, probably nothing, probably everything. He caressed her face, he worshipped the perfect curve of her cheek with his fingertips, he touched her parted, welcoming lips. He found himself drowning in a wellspring of gratitude and his own imperfections. There were no words to express what he felt, but he hoped with the force he might make her see. With the force, he now had hope for all things.

"Thank you," he said, and he meant it.

-_-_-O-_-_-O-_-_-

-_T-H-E_E-N-D_-

-_-_-O-_-_-O-_-_-

 _ **A/N: Le SIGH. All good things have to come to an end, and this is the end of this story (I gave myself a final Epilogue so I could have a little extra self-indulgent Reylo time). I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with these wonderful, wonderful characters (especially Ben), living vicariously in the beautiful Star Wars universe. If you had asked me six months ago, I never would have thought I would be completing a SW fic right now, but life's crazy like that. I had to become a short order "expert" on Star Wars (I didn't really) but I studied and lived this trash the whole time, like a true nerd. I now know every scene between Kylo Ren and Rey backwards and forwards; I've studied all the theories and metas; I'm a devotee of Wookiepedia and Reylo on Tumblr. I did it all. It was worth it. I have a special place in my heart for Rey and Ben Solo.**_

 ** _I mentioned at the beginning of this fic that once I saw "The Last Jedi", I couldn't rest until I wrote this. That was true! That's a testament to how good and how compelling that movie is. I had to work through my thoughts on Ben Solo, and to work through the possibilities. Now, after completing this fic, I'll eat my hat if he isn't redeemed, I'm that sure of it happening. Also, I hope I'm right because I suspect hats taste gross._**

 ** _When I started this fic I didn't know if I could do it; I didn't know if I could really get inside the head of Ben Solo. It was mostly an experiment in "can I do this?". Doing so ended up not only possible and rewarding, but cathartic. I think we've all got a little Ben Solo inside of us that needs dealing with. Taken under that perspective, his redemption reflects on all of us. If he's got a shot at being redeemed, then so can we. WHEW!_**

 ** _It was also important to me that, despite redemption, Ben maintain who he was. He has something of a split personality which represents what he takes from the light and the dark. He's figured out how to use them together; it's how he works. I didn't feel like he needed to go back to being 100% Ben Solo. He will always be part Kylo Ren. I felt like he needed to move forward, using the wisdom he had gained, and be who he is now, not regress into who he was before._**

 ** _Also, I felt a little bit of a Matt the Radar Technician vibe while writing the scene with "the traitor" Finn at the beginning of this Epilogue. Just assume there would be a lot of scenes like that as he gets to know the rest of the Resistance crew. He's not a great fit in the group, but that's what makes him unintentionally funny. However, his dedication and tireless work ethic will make him invaluable to the Resistance. Not that he will care. All he cares about is Rey, and building a new order in the force to reform the Jedi. To him, the First Order and Resistance are transitory. The only permanence he recognizes is the force._**

 ** _Lastly, I want to express my gratitude for all of the likes, favorites, and most of all beautiful reviews (and even short reviews, and even one-word reviews) that you have left on this fic. I did not expect it to be noticed, really. Thank you, thank you, for liking it, for reading, and for being beautifully gracious about any flaws it has._**

 ** _Much love,_**

 ** _Writer-person_**


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